Men of the Lagos State Police Command have arrested a hip-hop artiste, a pianist and five others for robbery in Lagos last week Wednesday.
The suspects: Chinonso Michael, 25 years, an Afro hip – hop singer and Chimelu Victory, 22 years, a pianist, were arrested at their residence at 4, Modupe Young Thomas Estate, Ajah, in company of 5 other suspects.
The duo had on April 10 2020, ordered pay on delivery, an iPhone 11 Pro Max valued at N450,000 through an online platform, Jiji.com.
On receipt of the consignment from a delivery man, Chimelu generated a fake alert and later, with the connivance of Chinonso, escaped from the apartment after they had delayed the dispatch rider with a bottle of beer.
The suspects then sold the phone to a buyer in Ogba, Ikeja, for a sum of N350,000 transferred into Chinoso’s bank account.
On sighting the police who came to arrest them, the suspects jumped off from the first floor naked. Chinonso fractured his arm and bruised his chin immediately he landed on the ground floor. He then raced to the street naked before he was arrested and taken to the hospital.
In their confessions, Chinonso and Chimelo, who are regular performers in some Lagos night clubs, confessed that that was the third time they sold iPhone 11 Pro Max during the COVID – 19 lockdown, adding that the other two phones were carted online with stolen credit cards.
They attributed their actions to the lockdown, stressing that they had nothing to eat for almost two weeks.
“We were already owing all the store owners in the neighbourhood. Nobody was ready to give us credit anymore. We had to device a means to survive the lockdown”, they stated.
Chimelu, aka Apostle Swag, who recently resigned as a Lekki church keyboardist to pursuit a career in music, stated that he used to have regular shows in Lagos clubs before the lockdown.
The suspects confessed that apart from their musical careers, they also engage in internet fraud.
Exhibits recovered from the suspects include one iPhone 11Pro Max, three laptops, two flash drives, two WiFi connection modems, two memory cards, four SIM cards, one Samsung phone and one iPhone.
The suspects have been transferred to SARS for further investigations and prosecution.
