The Police High Command in Abuja has paraded suspected members of a criminal gang who specialize in vandalism and theft of rail tracks in the North-West and North-Central parts of the country.
Force Public Relations Officer, C.P. Frank Mbah, identified the suspects as forty-two-year-old Idris Lawal; twenty-nine-year-old Abdullahi Musa; and twenty-two-year-old Usman Umar.
C.P. Mbah said the suspects were arrested during a special operation on May 27, 2021, at a warehouse in Gboko, Benue State.
Mbah said further investigations also led to the arrest of three trucks loaded with stolen rail tracks and other components at Ikom-Ibom junction in Cross Rivers State.
The Force spokesman paraded the suspects alongside thirty-three others who were allegedly arrested for various crimes in different parts of the country.
He said some of the suspects were arrested for banditry, kidnapping, armed robbery, possession of illegal firearms, cultism, murder, economic sabotage, cybercrime, and car snatching, among others.
Frank Mbah said the arrested were made by operatives attached to the Police Intelligence Response Team and the Special Tactical Squad.
He said items recovered from the suspects include eighty AK-49 rifles, three AK47 rifles, one locally made rifle, and three hundred and forty-six rounds of AK-47 ammunition, twenty-four cartridges, and twenty AK-47 magazines.
The police teams also recovered the sum of one million, four hundred thousand in cash, as well as several vehicles from the suspects.