From Phone Thieves To Car Snatchers – Suspects opens up

Bola Salami, 29, Opeyemi Aregbesola,
25, and Ogunleye Lati were paraded for
car theft on Friday.
The duo of Salami and Aregbesola
were out of luck when they were
arrested on December 2, 2015 for
stealing a red 2010 Toyota Camry.
Speaking to Saturday Punch ,
Aregbesola, who hails from Osun
State, said he was into phone theft
before he decided to get involved in
car snatching so he could raise more
money. He began, “Somebody told
me he was in need of a vehicle, so
my friend and I decided to snatch
one for him.
I wanted to make more money, that
was why I agreed to supply the
vehicle.“On the particular day, my
friend and I were passing through
the Ofada Street, Olorunsogo, in
Mushin (Lagos State) when we saw
the opportunity and we jumped at it.
What we had in mind was to go and
snatch phones, which was what we
had been doing before. But when we
got to that street and saw the Camry,
we just remembered that somebody
had told us he needed such car. That
was when we decided to snatch the
car.”
Talking about how they snatched the
car from the victim, whose name
was not disclosed, Aregbesola said
they didn’t operate with any weapon.
He continued:-
“We slapped the man on his chest
suddenly and he ran away. He
parked his car in front of the house
and left the key on the ignition. He
had gone to the boot of his car to
collect something and closed the
gate. As he was going back to enter
the car, we slapped him and he ran
away. We drove the car away before
the police recovered it through
tracking.
“Our main focus was to snatch
phones and we have stolen a number
of that but the opportunity came to
make more money and we took it. I
met Salami recently and we used to
snatch phones together before this
offer came. We had planned to sell
the car for N400,000.”
Giving his own account of how they
snatched the car, Salami, who said
he was released from police
detention earlier this year having
been wrongly detained for about
four years, said they drove the car
from Mushin to Abule Egba before
the police tracked and recovered it
from them.
He said, “I was first arrested in
Ibadan in 2011 during a riot by
NURTW members. I was in detention
for four years. I was an innocent
danfo driver. I have four siblings. It
was the devil that pushed me into
this crime and I regret it.
“When I came out of prison, I was
jobless before I met Aregbesola. I had
planned to invest the proceeds from
the car robbery. I felt it would be a
break for me and I had planned not
to go back to it again if I could make
some money from the Camry deal.”
Meanwhile, another Ogunleye Lati
was arrested for being a receiver of
stolen vehicles. It was gathered that
Lati had agreed to buy the car from
them. Speaking to Saturday Punch,
Lati claimed it was the second time
he was getting involved in the crime.
“I didn’t plan to buy the car. This is
actually my second time of getting
involved in this business. The first
time, the police also recovered the
car, so I decided to see if I could be
successful this time. My plan was to
sell the car as soon as the boys sold it
to me.
“I was a computer engineer at Ikeja
but when officials of Kick Against
Indiscipline chased us out of Ikeja,
things became difficult for me. They
smashed our show glass, everything I
had was gone, things weren’t
working for me again, so I had to get
involved in this crime,” he said.