Operatives of the Ondo State Security Network Agency, Codenamed Amotekun Corps, have arrested two secondary school girls (name withheld) for allegedly feigning their kidnap and demanding ransom from their parents.
The girls who are from the same parents were arrested by Amotekun in Oka-Akoko, Akoko South-West Local Government Area of Ondo State, and were in JSS 3 and SSS 1 classes.
LEADERSHIP gathered that the girls, ages 13 and 15, hid somewhere and called their Mother, pretending as kidnappers who abducted her daughters.
The Corps Commander, Akogun Adetunji Adeleye, further explained to LEADERSHIP at Corps Headquarters in Akure, the state capital on Monday that the girls demanded N100,000 from their mother.
Adeleye disclosed that the girls also threatened their mother and the monarch of the town to kill the abductees in their custody if the ransom is not paid within 24 hours.
Narrating how they planned the operation to LEADERSHIP, the younger sister disclosed that she and her sister spent the night in their grandma’s place and left the place around 6:00 am.
According to her, on their way home, her elder sister informed her that she had a plan to get money from their mother and revealed her plan to declare themselves kidnapped and asked for N50,000 ransom from their mother.
She said, “It was my sister that taught me what to say when we put a call through to our mother. We didn’t know that it was the monarch that was speaking with us on the phone when we threatened to kill our captives if they failed to pay the ransom quickly.”
Meanwhile, twenty-eight suspected criminals were also paraded by the corps.
According to the Corps Commander who is also the state governor’s Special Adviser on security matters, the criminals were arrested in different parts of the state for Kidnapping, cult activities, and illegal possession of arms among others.
While expressing happiness that several joint patrols between Amotekun men, the military, and other security agencies had been yielding positive results, Adeleye noted that the joint security patrol teams had combed some forests like Jubere forest, Ilale in Owo, Aromogija, Ute, to the boundary between Ondo and Edo States to Akoko where some of the kidnappers were arrested.
Adeleye said, “The 28 suspects we are parading today show that we have more kidnappers than any other criminal activities. This is in continuation of our efforts at ensuring that kidnapping in Ondo State becomes a thing of the past”.
“We have people who kidnapped themselves and raised alarm and in our diligent investigations, we were able to unravel the mystery surrounding the disappearance to the extent that they confessed. We equally have kidnapped suspects of some very high profile individuals in the society that we are working on”.
