The Nigeria Police have said that useful statements by a younger sister, childhood friend and four girlfriends of the billionaire kidnapper, Chukwudi Onuamadike, aka Evans, made the arrest of “Evans The Terrible” possible as he used special phones that made tracking impossible.
The sister was reportedly arrested after her number was identified by the police as one of the contacts in one of Evans’ special SIM cards.
She and the kidnap kingpin’s childhood friend and four girlfriends, who were also arrested, gave useful information that helped in nabbing the man who made a fortune kidnapping wealthy Nigerians for ransom.
According too the Police, Evans used three phones – two of which they said cost N2.4m and N2.6m respectively. Both had anti-tracking features, which highly frustrated his arrest.
It is gathered that Evans, who had 126 SIM cards, contacted families of his victims through the phones to demand ransoms, knowing that the police could not use the phone to track him.
A Police officer told the Punch, “He has 11 phones. Two of them are special Virtu phones, which are very difficult to track. He also has a Turaya, which is a satellite phone. It can be used anywhere, including in the bush, on the sea, and desert, where there are no GSM service. In Nigeria, we don’t have the capability to track Turaya.
“He said he bought the Virtu phones N4.6m. He used the three phones for his nefarious activities. We succeeded in tracking him through the other phones he has.”
The number of SIM cards used by Evans and the challenges posed by the sophisticated phones made his arrest very difficult, said another officer, who added that he bought the SIM cards already registered from miscreants in Computer Village, Ikeja.
He said, “We studied and analysed 126 SIM cards before we caught him. We have about two-page analysis of each of the numbers. He used 125 of those numbers to call his gang members only and used one to call his mother, wife and sister. He said he bought all the SIM cards already registered in Computer Village for N1,500 each.
“We picked his sister, his childhood friend with whom he attended primary school, and four of his girlfriends. They gave us the information that led to his arrest. Evans confirmed that they didn’t know he was into kidnapping. Because of that, we granted them bail, while investigations continue.”
Evans was picked up in his Magodo GRA mansion in Lagos on Saturday and would be arraigned in court soon according to the Force Public Relations Officer, Jimoh Moshood.
cpcnews.org 