Police authorities in Katsina State on Friday paraded a 58-year-old suspected Indian Hemp dealer with 180 carefully sealed parcels of dried leaves suspected to be Cannabis Sativa.

The suspect simply identified as Abdurrazaq Ajibade of Kofa community in Kwara State but residing behind Magama Restaurant in Katsina metropolis, was arrested while attempting to smuggle the prohibited items to the Niger Republic.

While parading the suspect at the Command headquarters, Katsina, the police spokesman Gambo Isah revealed that the suspected trafficker was arrested on September 7th, 2022 at about 16:30 hours based on credible intelligence.

Although the remaining members of the syndicate comprising a driver and one other member escaped, the arrested suspect confessed to having been in the deal six consecutive times each of which the sum of N60, 000 is being offered to him as his commission to take care of his family.

Ajibade during the police interrogation also stated that he was arrested at ‘Welcome to Katsina Gate’.

“I am not the dealer of the prohibited items, my own is just to deliver the items to the destination. I am just serving as the middleman,” he said. “It’s one Hambali from Ogbomosho that hired my service.”

In the meantime, the police also succeeded in neutralising one suspected armed robber along Koza village in Mai’adua Local Government Area of the state which is sharing a border with the Niger Republic.

The neutralised suspected armed robber is among the three suspects who stole a Toyota jeep from Abuja.

Isah displayed the corpse of the suspected armed robber in a press briefing on Friday at the command headquarters. He recalled that the success was recorded after they received an intelligence report that armed robbers robbed someone in Abuja of his black Toyota Land Cruiser with registration number ABC 165 HP Abuja.

He called on residents to continue to assist the security operatives with useful information that could lead to the arrest of criminal elements to ensure lasting peace and stability in the state.

“Detectives from the Anti Kidnapping Unit gave the hoodlums a hot chase and succeeded in tracking them. They engaged the hoodlums in a gun duel and neutralised one of the armed robbers and recovered the vehicle.

“The armed robbers have gone sophisticated by using a network jammer so that the vehicle tracker and mobile networks cannot work.

“As God would have it, we used the sophisticated methods too and tracked them down,” the spokesman added.(Channels TV: Text, excluding headline)

Update news