Delta State Police Command said yesterday it recovered 305 rifles and shot guns from criminals and arrested 108 armed bandits.
The arrests include that of a middle-aged man who paraded himself as a lawyer, and was caught trying to ferry 11bags of Indian hemp to Lagos.
Addressing the press in Asaba, the state police commissioner, Mr Ekpoudom said 62 armed robbery cases were reported to the command within the period under review, while 18 officers were injured during shoot-out with bandits.
He said 164 motor vehicles and 232 motorcycles were recovered during the period.
Within the period, he said, 708 officers and men of the command were promoted to various ranks, while 33 deserted the job, and two received severe disciplinary measures for aiding and abetting armed robbery operation .
Overall, he said 67 officers were dismissed, 48 demoted, 68 were reprimanded, while two were suspended.
The suspect, Mr Joseph Mba, an indigene of Abbi in Ndokwa West Council area of the state was nabbed along Obiarukwu �Umutu road, close to Agbor, by men of the anti-crime patrol attached to Obiarukwu division while on township patrol last week.
Mba, a junior secondary school drop-out was among suspected hoodlums paraded yesterday by the state Commissioner of Police, Mr Udom Ekpoudom at the command headquarters in Asaba.
Ekpoudom said the suspect was arrested on January 4,2007 as he defied the flag down order by his men on patrol adding that the action had made the officers to suspect him .
The patrol had immediately given him a hot chase as he sped in his Peugeot 505 with registration number AG 07 MJB .
The suspect who claimed to be erstwhile specialist in rubber tapping in Abbi community said he engaged in the illegal business when the business was no longer lucrative about three years ago.
The suspect also disclosed that he took to the business for the first time to make ends meet, pointing out that he paraded himself as a lawyer to beat security operatives on the high way to Lagos .
He further explained that he purchased the lawyer�s wig and white collar tie at an undisclosed market along one of the busy streets in Lagos .
�I only dressed like this to pass the road .I have not engaged in the business before and I bought the wig and the collar along the road in Lagos with the books .My wife is aware that I was arrested and has not come to see me �he stated.