The Police in Lagos have arrested one Jamiu Adebayo, leader of a gang who specialize in buying phones from armed robbers and ‘one chance’ criminals who later repackages the phones as ‘Used London’ phones.
These phones are later sold to unsuspecting members of the public as fairly used phones.
Nemesis was said to have caught up with Adebayo when operatives of SARS tracked and found in his possession, an iPhone 7 belonging to one Kolade Johnson, a banker working in Lagos Island who had on August 23 boarded a ‘one chance’ commercial bus around 5:45 a.m. on his way to work.
The robbers, operating with the commercial bus dispossessed him of a laptop and 2 phones, one of which was traced to Adebayo while trying to sell it to a customer in Lagos Island as a ‘London Used Phone’.
Also found in the possession of Adebayo were 6 additional iPhones, 4 assorted phones and three MTN SIM packs, which he stated he collected from some of the robbers.
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Adebayo confessed to the crime noting that he regularly bought stolen phones from three people who he is aware are members of an armed robbery and ‘one chance’ gang.
He said, “Uche, Alubi and Pinheiro are three major guys I collect these phones from. Five out of the 11 phones traced to me were bought from Uche.
“If I tell you that I don’t know these phones are stolen phones and that some of those I get the phones from are robbers, I would be lying to you. I know some of these phones were forcefully collected from people”.
“I buy iPhone 7 with iCloud at N45, 000 and sell for N55, 000. Those without iCloud, I buy at N150, 000 and sell for N180, 000. I buy iPhone 6 at N65, 000.
“I buy Samsung phones at N22, 000 and sell for N27, 000. I sell other phones too. I work on the phones and disguise them as London used phones”.
The suspect further confessed that he works with a phone technician to unlock iPhones with active icloud adding that “what we do is locate and talk the owner to unlock the phone and it is done.”
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