The Rivers State police command has arrested 24 suspects, including a girl and a soldier serving in the Joint Military Task-Force (JTF) in the Niger Delta region, over their involvement in armed robbery, kidnapping and other criminal acts in the state.
This is as the command announced that it had deployed 6,480 policemen to provide security across the state during the Christmas and New Year celebrations.
Parading the suspects before journalists yesterday in Port Harcourt, the commissioner of police, Mr. Suleiman Abbah, said the soldier (names withheld) and five members of his gang were arrested when they attempted to kidnap a businessman in Port Harcourt.
Abbah stated that six other suspects went into the record of the telecommunication firm, MTN and got addresses and telephone numbers of prominent Nigerians, who they called and sent threat messages to in order to dispossess them of the money and other valuable properties.
He said that members of the gang, who were arrested at Oyigbo, near Port Harcourt, had hundreds of MTN registered cards in their possession, with which they reached out to their victims.
The police commissioner said investigations were on to arrest their collaborators, believed to be staff of the telecommunication company.