A domestic worker, Sossougueto Theodore (50), who allegedly conspired with one Oluwasegun Olusoji (35), a neighbour, to rob his employer, Yasushi Murata, has been arrested by detectives at the State Criminal Investigation Department, Panti, in Lagos State Police Command.
The victim is a Japanese and an expatriate employee of Honda Automobile West Africa Ltd but resident at Chris Ali Street, Abacha Estate, Ikoyi, Lagos.
Disclosing this in a statement on Thursday, February 17, 2022, the command’s police image-maker, CSP Adekunle Ajisebutu, said that the duo conspired together, broke into the victim’s residence on February 1, at about 11pm, and forced him to transfer the sum of N1 million into the Zenith Bank account of Oluwasegun Olusoji.
“After torturing and violently assaulting the victim, the robbers, who were masked, armed with a gun and an axe, made away with his Automated Teller Machine (ATM) card after coercing him into disclosing his PIN.
“A few days after the robbery, the suspects, using the ATM, unlawfully and fraudulently withdrew the sum of N1,729,850 million, making N2,729,850 million collected from the victim’s bank account without authorization,” the PPRO stated.
Afraid of being arrested, the two suspects were said to have threatened to kill the victim if he failed to leave the country or ever disclosed what happened to anyone.
Unperturbed by the threat but pained by the injuries sustained, the victim, after recovering from the trauma, reported the robbery through a petition to the State Criminal Investigation Department, Panti.
Ajisebutu said that when the petition was received, the Deputy Commissioner of Police in charge of the State Criminal Investigation Department, Adegoke Fayoade, immediately assigned detectives to investigate the incident.
He added that painstaking investigation led to the arrest of the perpetrators, and when interrogated, a member of the two-man armed robbery gang, Olusoji, confessed to the crime and gave a vivid account of how the operation was jointly carried out.
At the conclusion of investigation, the Commissioner of Police, Abiodun Alabi, directed that the case should be charged to court.
The police commissioner admonished employers to always carry out a background check on their domestic staff before employing them, also urging them to be wary of criminal neighbours.
