We don’t use juju; My friends introduced me to this business – Gang member - vanguard

The end of the road for a five-man one-chance gang finally came on Monday, November 23, 2015 at Iyana-Ipaja area of Lagos State when operatives of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) attached to the state Police Command arrested two members of the gang who specialised in defrauding innocent people who board cabs in the state. The suspects identified as Joy Duru and Maduka who were members of the catch-in-the-air robbery gang, otherwise known as one chance, were arrested after a female passenger victim who boarded their vehicle raised the alarm when she realised she had been swindled of the sum of N300,000.

The unsuspecting victim simply identified as Chizoba boarded the gang’s cab going to Egbeda,  unknown to her that they were swindlers. While she was inside the cab, one of the fraudsters, Joy Duru, who pretended to be a passenger introduced herself to Chizoba as a native of Imo State and asked her where she was from. The discussion, according to the police, was meant to subtly put the victim off guard.

Victims’s account

According to Chizoba, ‘’I boarded a cab going to Egbeda after my uncle sent me on an errand to pay some money into a client’s account. I never knew that the vehicle I boarded was filled with fraudsters who pretended to be passengers. One of them (Joy Duru) kept asking me questions about myself; I really didn’t understand what she was up to as she made me believe that the others didn’t understand what she was saying to me in Igbo. All of a sudden, they started talking about one of the passengers with foreign currencies and how to remove charm placed on the money.

They drove the cab to the house of a supposed prophetess at Iyana Ipaja. Initially, I told her that I wasn’t interested but before I knew what was happening, I had given them the N300,000 with me. It was when they started alighting one after the other that I realised that it was a scam so I gripped Joy when she was attempting to alight, and I raised the alarm.”

Suspects’ confessions

Initially denying the allegation, the 45-year-old mother of seven who identified herself as Joy Duru said, “On the day we were arrested, members of our gang were inside our operational cab en route Egbeda, pretending to be passengers when a real passenger boarded the cab. Immediately she entered the cab, the driver asked the other passengers for their fares. One of our gang members who was inside the cab gave the driver a dollar note, saying she didn’t have naira note.

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