By Evelyn Usman

LAGOS—Operatives of the Inspector General of Police Anti-Pipeline Vandalism Unit have apprehended four suspected pipeline vandals, who specialised in printing fake way bills and other documents of major oil marketers in order to facilitate movement of stolen petroleum products within and outside Lagos State.

The suspected vandals

Recovered from the suspects were over 20,000 fake documents such as invoice and way bills of major oil marketers in the country.

Other documents found with the suspects included tickets and way bills of the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers, NUPENG, Lagos Zonal council PTD branch of NUPENG, NUPENG stickers , NATO PTD Welfare scheme Limited , NARTO Western zone, NNPC tickets among others.

The suspects were alleged to have broken a pipeline belonging to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation ,NNPC at Ogere , Ogun state, on December 28, 2015 where they siphoned some petroleum products. Thereafter, they reportedly set one of the broken portions ablaze .

Luck, however, ran against one of the suspects following his arrest on Sunday around Agric bus top, in Ikorodu area of Lagos, by operatives of the Unit’s intelligence section.

The suspect identified as Mutiu Bello was arrested while conveying the 22,000 litres of the suspected stolen petroleum products to Ondo state.

When a search was conducted round his apartment in Ikorodu, one hundred and fifty jerry cans(50 litres) filled with the suspected siphoned petroleum products were reportedly recovered .

During interrogation , Bello, popularly called Omoja, according to the Officer-in- charge of the Unit, Mr Valentine Olumese, a Chief Superintendent of Police , mentioned three other persons as his accomplices.

Explaining , Oluemese said the operatives disguised as vandals and contacted one of those mentioned by Bello to get them some documents, “on arrival the suspected vandal was arrested.”

I print each document for 10,000

One of the suspects , Ganui Oresanya, told Vanguard that he sold each of the documents to vandals for N10,000.

The 41-year-old suspect, who claims to be a sign writer “I print the fake documents to ensure we beat security agents on the road. I have been in the business for a while. I never thought I would be apprehended because we were very careful and we ensured we had all the necessary documents that would make it impossible for anyone to detect that the product were not loaded from the concerned depot.”

On his part, the tanker driver, Bello , said he was paid N70,000 to convey the product to Ondo state, adding that he bought each 50 litres of the 150 jerry cans recovered from his house for N6,000 and usually sell for N8000.

The Unit Lagos State sector Commander, Mr Solomon Ubani, a Superintendent of Police stated that operatives could not go to the creeks because surveillance of the area had been contracted out to private security.

He however assured that the unit would frustrate vandals’ efforts to take stolen products out of the creeks, adding that measures had been put in place to ensure their arrest outside the creeks.