Nigeria Prison Deputy Superintendent in police net for armed robbery.

A Deputy Superintendent of the Nigeria Prisons service, (DSP) in the Nigerian Prisons Service, Collins Ugwu, has been arrested by the Enugu State Police command on suspicion of armed robbery.

Ugwu, said to be a native of Ezza in Ebonyi State, resides in Abuja where he works at the headquarters of the Nigeria Prisons Service, was reportedly caught in Enugu on June 26.

The senior prisons officer was arrested alongside alleged accomplices — Ifeanyi Ozor, a native of Enugu State who is also residing in Abuja, and Smart Osetu, from Oguta in Imo State.

The Enugu State Commissioner of Police, Mohammed Danmallam, disclosed this while parading the suspects.

He alleged that, apart from armed robbery, the prisons officer and his gang were also involved in conspiracy, malicious damage, stealing and ‘obtaining by tricks’.

Danmallam said that Ugwu and others were apprehended after the Police gathered intelligence information on their activities.

According to him, the gang hung around the premises of commercial banks to monitor prospective victims who had come to withdraw money.

The ComPol alleged that the suspects (Ugwu, Ozor and Osetu) belonged to a syndicate that specialised in monitoring anyone that had gone to the bank to make withdrawals and trailed them to a point where they could smartly force the door or the windscreen of the victims cars open with their instrument and steal the said amount.

According to him, “They were also a part of a syndicate that bought goods from traders and generated fake payment alert to the owners of the goods without him knowing.

“They were nabbed along Ogui Road, Enugu, by the operatives of the Enugu State Police Command on June 26, 2018, following intelligence information gathered concerning their nefarious activities”.

Items allegedly recovered from the suspects, according to Danmallam, included a Golf car with registration number Abuja RBC 220 KF, and a broken plug which they allegedly used in’ scratching down’ windows of cars when they wanted to steal from their victims.

Ugwu however rebuffed attempts by newsmen to get him to explain why a Deputy Superintendent of Prisons would venture into armed robbery and other criminal activities, especially after witnessing, at close quarters, the harsh treatment meted out to criminals in Nigerian prisons.

The Police commissioner further explained that Ugwu and the other suspects were already helping the Police in their investigations and that they will soon be charged to court