PHOTO CREDIT: Photo courtesy of Rivers State Police Command / Punch Newspapers
Rivers Police Parades Fake Soldier, 17 Others, Recovers 47 Arms

The Rivers State Police Command has arrested 18 suspected criminals, including a 49-year-old man impersonating a soldier, in a two-month crackdown on kidnapping, car-snatching, armed robbery and cultism.

Commissioner of Police, Olugbenga Adepoju, paraded the suspects on Thursday at the Command headquarters on Moscow Road, Port Harcourt. He said operatives recovered 47 firearms of different calibres, 12 stolen vehicles, 102 rounds of live ammunition, five cartridges, 11 cutlasses and an axe between June and August 2026.

According to CP Adepoju, the fake soldier, Andrew Atausi, was arrested on August 10 along Ada George Road while dressed in full military uniform and driving a Toyota Hilux painted in Army colours. Investigation showed he is a suspected serial car snatcher. Three Toyota Hilux vans without number plates and a Toyota Corona Premio with registration BNY 380 ES were recovered from him, with their chassis numbers already tampered with.

The Command also arrested three suspects linked to the June 29 attack on officers on stop-and-search duty at Aluu in Ikwerre LGA, where two policemen were killed and two AK-47 rifles carted away. The rifles have now been recovered from their hideout at Omagwa.

Five members of a kidnapping syndicate operating in Oyigbo — Kom-Kom, Railway, Obeama and Afam — were also nabbed, alongside two one-chance robbery suspects and others arrested for cultism and unlawful possession of firearms.

CP Adepoju assured residents that Rivers State will not be a safe haven for criminals, saying the Command will continue intelligence-led policing in collaboration with the military, DSS and NSCDC.
SOURCE: Punch Newspapers