By Olasunkanmi Akoni

A notorious phone dealer, Yusuph Da-Silva, 28, who specialised in buying and selling mobile phones from robbers and pickpockets operating in Ogun and Lagos state, has narrated how he buys over 30 phones a week and make between N25,000 and N30,000 daily from the sales.

The suspect, popularly called, Da-Gold in Computer Village, Ikeja, and Ifako-Ijaiye, was last week arrested by the Decoy Team of the Lagos State Rapid Response Squad, RRS, over a robbery incident around Ifako-Ijaiye, where mobile phones, laptops and other valuables were robbed at gunpoint.

It was gathered that the suspect had been on the run after the Police began a crackdown on the robbery gangs supplying him mobile phones.

It was also gathered that he maintained links with three-armed robbery gangs that constantly supplied him with stolen phones and other valuables.

In his confessional statement, Da-Silva said: “I deal in smartphones. I have been a phone technician in Computer Village, Ikeja, since 2012. When I realised that wasn’t yielding enough money, I developed links with a network of boys on the streets that gave me a steady supply of phones.

“I wipe or flash them before selling them. I don’t collect their SIMs. I get up to six or seven smartphones from them on a daily basis and I sell to my customers in Computer Village.

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“The sales from those phones fetched me between N25,000 to N30,000 daily. I don’t bother to ask them how they get the phones because they have told me they were gotten through ‘stop-and-search,’ a coded term for robbery.

“I am not a robber. Face-to-face, they would confirm to you that I don’t rob, but bought the phones from them. I have never followed them to rob. What I used to do was internet fraud, before I started buying stolen phones from these guys.”

Vanguard