The police in Lagos on Friday arrested five men and a woman for allegedly operating an illegal depot at Ejigbo area of the state.
Also, the police recovered five 33, 000-litre-tankers belonging to the suspects, who were caught siphoning fuel from a pipeline. The suspects were said to have been diverting fuel from the pipeline into some tankers using sophisticated equipment.
Saturday Punch gathered that members of the group were arrested following a surveillance placed on them by the police, who had been investigating their activities for a while. A police source said a claim that the suspects were working for an engineer, who is a staff of the NNPC, was being investigated.
Deputy Spokesman of the Lagos State Police Command, Mr. Frank Mba, told our correspondent that the manner the hole was cut into the pipeline showed a professional touch. He said the men attached a switch to the hose which they connected to the pipeline.
“It showed that they had been on this job for a while. To also erase any suspicion from the pipe, they built a kiosk over their pipe, where recharge cards were sold during the daytime. At night, they would push the kiosk to one side and attach their own hose and pumping machine, and then pump fuel into their own tankers,” he said.
In a separate development, the spokesman of the command, Mr. Bode Ojajuni, has been given an award of African Nation Builder in Accra, Ghana. Approving the receipt of the award, the Inspector-General of Police, Mike Okiro, said such honours would encourage his men to serve the nation well.