Facts have emerged on how two Hausa bureau de change operators operating in Benson area of Ikorodu garage were allegedly lured and killed by three suspected cult members in Ikorodu. According to the reports gathered, the suspects had approached the two victims, identified as Yakubu Musa and Hassan Umar, under the pretense that one of their relatives, who had just returned from abroad, wanted to sell $10,000 to them.
The suspects were said to have initially told the victims that the transaction would be done in a bank but on getting to the bank, they moved the operators to an unknown destination and started demanding ransom from their friends and relatives. The suspects, who were identified as Oluwatosin Olanrewaju, Mayowa Olawunmi and Babatunde Idris, were said to have approached the two men for the transaction at Benson axis of Ikorodu garage. The sum of N1.6m was said to have been paid as ransom to the suspects but they refused to release the victims and nothing more was heard from them nor from their captives, whose mobile phones were said to have been switched off.
However, a Special Anti-Robbery Squad team, detailed by the Lagos State Commissioner of Police to investigate the matter upon receiving a complaint from some people in Ikorodu regarding the whereabouts of the two men, apprehended the three suspects and were said to have confessed to the crime after being interrogated. Oriwu Sun also gathered that in the cause of investigation, a female nurse, whose bank account was allegedly used to collect the ransom, was arrested, which led the investigative team in arresting the three suspects. The woman was alleged to have been paid an undisclosed amount for the job by the suspects.
The suspects, led the Police team to their hideout located at the tail end of the Odogunyan Grammar School’s fence, along Spintex road in Odogunyan, Ikorodu, where they dumped the remains of the bureau de change operators alongside the bodies of two rival cult members in a septic tank. According to report gathered, the suspects had at various times used the hideout, which is an abandoned factory building, as their den, where they killed and dumped all their targets in the septic tank.
The four decomposed bodies of the victims had since been recovered from the septic tank by the Police for autopsy as part of the investigation on the incident. Also, two locally made single barreled guns with five line cartridges, one locally made gun with three ammunition, one locally made revolver pistol with three live ammunition, one cutlass, one axe and some charms, were recovered from the suspects upon their arrest.