BY DAYO JHNSON

AKURE-A fake Army Colonel, identified as Akobundu Nwankwo, said to be a specialist in threatening notable individuals and members of their family with kidnap has been arrested for allegedly duping a serving Commissioner (names withheld) in Ondo State.

Also,14 suspects accused of various crimes including armed robbery, kidnapping, cultism, burglary and blackmail were paraded by the Ondo State Police Command on Tuesday in Akure.

The unsuspecting Commissioner was said to have been contacted and threatened, after which he agreed to cough out N90,000 worth of GSM recharge cards to save himself and his children from been abducted.

At a briefing, State Police Commissioner, Sani Mogaji, said before his arrest, the suspect had succeeded in receiving recharge cards worth several thousands of naira from his victims.

Mogaji said Nwankwo who was however not paraded alongside other suspects was said to have collapsed on Tuesday morning and was rushed to a hospital on doctor’s advice.

According to the Police Commissioner, “the suspect uses a lady who sells recharge cards as his contact person and goes to printers to collect complimentary cards and uses the numbers to threaten his victims.”

Mogaji said that the suspect confessed that he got some of the complimentary cards from Printers’ trash cans after which he would use the numbers to threaten unsuspecting victims to cough out huge sum of money buying him recharge cards.

The suspect according to the Commissioner would after threatening to kidnap his victims or their children and out of fear, his victims would buckle and buy recharge cards worth thousands of naira for him.

His unsuspecting victims who according to Mogaji, normally reported to the police, identified the suspect.

Five others led by one Adebayo Odeniyi were paraded for other kidnapping activities which included the kidnapping of Abimbola Micheal, a student of a higher institution in Ekiti State.

They were alleged to have kidnapped Micheal from his house in Akure, but luck ran against them when their vehicle broke down and they were apprehended.

One of the suspects, Miss Funmilayo Oyinloye, according to police, confessed that she sent her friends account number to their victim, Alex Akinde whom they asked through telephone call to pay N500,000 or be kidnapped.

Items recovered from two burglars paraded included 18 laptops, three 24 inches flat screen television, one home theatre, a generating set, one pumping machine and three cameras.