Two fake SARS operatives arrested in Rivers state

Two fake F-SARS have been arrested in Port-Harcourt, Rivers state. They were caught after they allegedly held two men hostage and extorted money from them

As the campaign for the scrapping of Special Anti-Robbery Squad SARS gained momentum with the Rivers State government as the arrow head,two men allegedly claiming to be operatives of the Federal Special Anti-robbery Squad (F-Sars) have been arrested by the Rivers state police command.

One of the men, Kenneth Obunwa, who claimed to be a commander of the F-SARS and the other one, Olugbenga Abe, who claimed to be an officer, were arrested Tuesday, December 5, by operatives of F-SARS at Igwuruta near Port Harcourt in Ikwerre LGA of Rivers state.

Obunwa claimed to be an indigene of Egi in Ogba/Egbema/Ndoni Local Government Area of Rivers state while Abe hails from Ijero-Ekiti in Ekiti state, The Nation reports.

The two men were arrested after they allegedly stormed the house of one Pastor Moses Finan, and held him and his younger brother hostage until they reportedly extorted some money from their victims.

The state Commander of SARS, Akin Fakorode while parading suspects, said they were arrested after the command received a distress call around 7 a.m. on Tuesday.

He said: “F-SARS received a distress call that Obunwa and Abe, who claimed to be operatives of F-SARS, accosted Pastor Finan and his younger brother and subjected them to thorough search in their compound at Igwuruta, with undisclosed sum of money extorted from them.

“The suspects impersonated as operatives of F-SARS and they have been doing it for a while.

“We quickly responded to the distress call, because the members of the public adequately utilised the distress lines that we gave. We traced the impersonators and we arrested them.

“We have a lot of miscreants who are impersonating security agents, especially F-SARS, thereby harassing, intimidating and extorting money from innocent members of the public, who ought to be very vigilant.

“I wish to admonish members of the public that whenever they find operatives of F-SARS extorting money or persons claiming to be from F-SARS, but involved in impersonation, they should please notify F-SARS through these numbers: 08054000001, 08057000002 and 08057000003, as well as Rivers State Police Command’s Control Room numbers: 08098880134 and 08032003514.”