The operatives of Lagos Rapid Response (RRS), a unit of the Lagos Police Command have arrested a pick-up driver who specialises in buying stolen construction materials from site workers in Lekki area of Lagos and reselling them.
The suspect, Hassan Abubakar, 32, was arrested while driving a white pick-up van with a registration number KRD-474-BQ loaded with 21 bags of cement at about 5:30 a.m on Saturday by RRS officers on patrol of the area.
Hassan, when quizzed about how he got the 21 bags of cement lied he was a haulage driver contracted by a civil engineer working in MTN Estate in Lekki Phase 2 to help him convey the bags of cement from one construction site to another.
The officers who were not satisfied with his explanation insisted Hassan called the Site Manager to buttress his point; sensing the game was up, he stopped responding to further enquiries put to him by the officers.
Not convinced by his excuse, Hassan and the stolen items were handed over to the Decoy Team of the RRS where investigations revealed that the suspect, in collusion with a site guard bought the stolen 21 bags cement at a construction site in Lekki.
The security guard, Adamu Ibrahim, 43, disclosed to the police that he stole the 21 bags of cement from the construction site and that the owner of the site was based in the United States.
Adamu confessed further that the owner of the site hired him as a security guard to live there as well as supervise the site, adding that he sold the materials meant for construction on the site to Hassan because his boss defaulted in paying his N25,000 salary for about three months. Hence, in order to discharge his family obligations, he had to raise money by selling construction materials.
The suspects have been transferred to the State Criminal Investigative Department (SCID), Panti for further investigation and prosecution.
