23rd July, 2015
You may wish to be careful when you are besieged by men and women soliciting for alms, especially when you are caught up in traffic henceforth as Wilson Inalegwu, the Commissioner of Police of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT told journalists at a press briefing on Wednesday that his men have busted two cases of fake beggars in Abuja within one week.
Inalegwu told journalists that a Police patrol team attached to Asokoro Division had in response to a tip off swiftly raced to rescue a middle aged woman who was carrying a set of triplets and begging for alms at the popular AYA roundabout last Saturday.
The Policemen on a rescue mission, according to him began to smell a rat after a close observation of the triplets revealed that the children were not of the same age and identity.
He added that further interrogation of the supposed mother of the triplets revealed that one of the children belonged to a woman identified as Elizabeth Chukwu who is living in a Nyanya, a suburb of FCT which was about 13 kilometers to where the fake beggar was arrested.
Inalegwu added that a search conducted on a sack bag carried by the fake mother of the triplet revealed the sum of #88,150.00 (eighty eight thousand one hundred and fifty naira only) which she have succeeded in falsely getting from unsuspecting members of the public before her arrest.
In the same vein, Inalegwu also revealed that a tag team of fake beggars, made up of a man and a woman identified as Sunday Jato and Chinenye Akpa were arrested at Powerhouse which is in the same vicinity of Asokoro begging for alms.
The woman was leading the man to beg for money for motorists caught up in traffic light.
Jato had covered a part of his eye with bandage soaked in GB to give the impression that he sustained injury from fire burns and needs money to undergo medical treatment.
Inalegwu however said after thorough observation and interrogation by Police operatives attached to Asokoro Division, it was discovered that the suspect did not sustain any injury as claimed.
“He was only using that to defraud unsuspecting members of the public,” Inalegwu said.
He added that the Police Command had arrested 40 suspects for offences like armed robbery, theft, housebreaking in the past couple of weeks while 18 firearms, 10 stolen/snatched vehicles among others have also been recovered from criminals in the same period.