A 26 year old Airport cleaner, Chibuzor
Onuegbe is presently being trailed by the police for allegedly smuggling N242
million out of the baggage store of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport
(MMIA) undetected.
Although, he has since relocated to the
United Kingdom, three of his accomplice – Ifeanyi Francis, his girl friend,
Chioma Obinabor and his elder brother, Kalu Faith Onuegbe have been arrested. They are all being accused of assisting
the principal suspect to commit the crime and flee the country.
According to Sunnews, the stolen money was packed in a bag in US dollar
denomination totalling $1.5million which belongs to a middle aged woman (names
withheld).
She was said to have deposited the sum at
the MMIA baggage room on October 30, 2013 for safe keeping.
She discovered that the money was missing
when she wanted to pick it.
After all efforts to trace the money
failed, she reported the incident at the Lagos Police Command headquarters in
Ikeja where the Commissioner of Police, Umaru Manko directed the Officer
In-Charge of Special Anti Robbery Squad, Abba Kyari to fish out the culprits.
One of the accomplices, Francis who
claims to be an Engineering student at Government Technical College, Owerri,
Imo State confessed that he never knew the content of the bag until he left the
airport. He further revealed he made N60million from the deal.
“Chibuzor told me that he wanted to smuggle out some abandoned luggage from the
baggage store at the international airport. He gave me a bag containing old
laptops and clothes. He also gave me a tag ticket which was attached to the
bag.
“The deal was that I would get to the
airport as early as 6am and move to the baggage store and drop the bag. I will
tell the store keeper that I want to register the bag and will be back in evening
to pick it up.
“As agreed on October 30, 2013, I went to
the baggage store with the bag that already had a tag. The store keeper asked
me to pay N300 for a day and N600, if I am to pick it the next day. I paid N300
and dropped the bag. Later in the evening as agreed, I came to the airport and
picked the bag. When I saw Chibuzor, he told me that the deal did not work out,
and that I will be repeating the same process.”
“The next day as agreed, Francis went
through the same process and dropped the bag. In the evening at about 7pm, he
went back and picked the bag.
“I discovered that the bag was unusually
heavy. Since I knew what was on ground, I pretended that it was the same
weight. It was easy to pick the bag because I had a tag and a ticket.
“I quickly moved and joined Chibuzor who
was already with a taxi. I asked him what was in the bag and he told me to calm
down that I will get to know. We arrived his street and stopped in an area
where cars were parked. He opened the bag; it was then that I realised that it
contained bundles of dollar notes.
“I was speechless because the amount was
much. He told me that as a cleaner, he had access to the baggage room. All he
did was to unlock my bag to which he had the key and transfer the bag of money
into my own bag. He told me to calm down that there is a lot to gain and that
he needs to contact his friends at the airport before the money will be shared.
Those friends, he explained were the ones who gave him information that such
amount of money was in the baggage room and the colour of the bag. He tried to
close the bag and it was difficult, so he had to remove some bundles into
another bag. We heard the voice of some boys coming towards us, so Chibuzor
hurriedly left the spot and moved into their house. He forgot that he kept some
money in the bag that I was holding. He rushed out and promised to call me for
my share,” Francis further narrated.
Daily Post
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