Police in Lagos State have arrested two men who allegedly dispossessed a driver on the ride-sharing app, Uber, of his car, N20,000 and mobile phones, while pretending to be passengers. CP Imohimi Edgal, who is the Commissioner of Police in Lagos State, told newsmen on Thursday, January 30, that the Uber driver was tricked into the robbers’ net by a female accomplice.

“On October 19, 2018 at about 11:30a.m, an Uber driver picked a female passenger from Oniru to Orchid Hotel by 2nd Toll-gate, Lekki, unknown to him the woman belonged to a gang of armed robbers. On their way to the woman’s destination she asked the driver to pull over to enable her collect money from her boyfriend. The driver obliged her and pulled over, in the process, three armed men emerged and robbed the driver of his Toyota Corolla car with Reg. No. KRD-827-EY, two phones and N20,000 and zoomed off with the woman.”

CP Edgal continued: “On receipt of the report, operatives of SARS, Oshodi-Tapa, Lagos Island base, visited the scene of the incident, where they picked objects of evidential value for analysis. The result of the enquiry led to the arrest of the two suspects involved in the crime and the recovery of their operational arms; a cut to size double barrel gun with two live cartridges. During interrogation, they confessed to the crime and aided the operatives to recover the stolen car. They also confessed to stealing other cars in Lagos,” he said.

Edgal said the suspects also led the operatives to recover one Honda saloon car with registration number GGE-954-BQ which they snatched in Delta State. He said an investigation was ongoing with a view to arresting other fleeing members of the gang so they can be prosecuted.

This comes a few months after another taxi driver was robbed and killed by gunmen at an ATM point in the Obalende area of Lagos, as the killers took away his car. The general public was informed that a 2006 model Toyota Corolla with plate number GGE 740 ER was robbed at gun point, with the driver unfortunately losing his life.