A member of a notorious gang operating across the south-south and south-east of the country, Gogo Daniel Ume (aka Full Payment), has confessed to the police about how he usually donated food items and gifts to his church after every successful operation.
Gogo is one of the three suspects nabbed by the Inspector-General of Police Special Intelligence Response Team in Rivers and Bayelsa states, following weeks of efforts to track down the criminals.
When the suspects were apprehended, they were found with three AK47 rifles, one automatic rifle, 12 magazines, 310 rounds of live ammunitions and dynamite.
Soon after their arrest, the suspects, Gogo Ume, Ikadoi Michael Isere (aka White Witch) and Ifeanyi Kalu admitted to a crime spree that included numerous kidnappings and bank heists in the last three years.
According to the IRT, while being interrogated, the suspects admitted that they carried out the two bullion van robberies which took place between 2014 and 2015 at a Diamond Bank branch at Trans Amadi, Port Harcourt, where they stole N360m.
The suspects also admitted to carrying out the 2014 bullion van robbery at Igrita Roundabout, Airport Road, Port-Harcourt; robbery of a UBA branch on Azikiwe Road in Port-Harcourt in the same year and a 2015 bullion van robbery at another branch of the bank at the Rivers State University of Science and Technology, Port-Harcourt, where they made away with N80m and killed a student in the process.
The suspects told the police that they were responsible for a robbery attack on a Fidelity Bank branch at GRA, Port-Harcourt. In all these operations, several policemen were said to have been gunned down.
According to the statement made to the police during a foiled kidnapping attempt by the gang few months ago, they set ablaze a police patrol van along Psychiatric Hospital Road, Rumuigbo, Port-Harcourt.
But those were said to have taken place in Rivers State alone.
The gang reportedly extended their killing spree to neighbouring states like Enugu, where they took part in the robbery of a UBA branch in Owerri, Imo State in April 2014 and stole N5m.
They also admitted to attacking a First Bank branch in Enugu where one of their gang members identified as Akio was killed in June of the same year. The gang were said to have abandoned his body and fled.
However, amidst the robbery spree, the gang also undertook series of kidnappings and car-jacking which fetched them millions of naira.
Punch learnt that when the suspects were arrested, a Toyota Highlander SUV, Toyota Venza and a Ford Edge SUV, were recovered from them.
It was also learnt that in January 2014, the gang kidnapped a worker of an oil company, Agip, on whom a ransom of N16m was paid.
The police alleged that between 2013 and 2016, the gang killed at least 20 policemen in their operations.
Police are on the trail of other members of the gang as investigation continues.
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