How IRT recovered N100m, cars from notorious kidnapper, E-money; arrests banker

The Inspector General of Police Special Intelligence Response Team has revealed how it trailed and recovered 13 buildings, 13 vehicles and N100 million belonging to the leader of a notorious kidnapping and armed robbery gang terrorizing the South East and South South part of the country, Collins Ezenwa, popularly known as E-money.
Sources at the IRT on Tuesday that operatives of the IRT, who were on E-money’s trail before he was gunned down by policemen attached to the Special Anti-Robbery Squad attached to the Imo State Police Command, in 2018, when they accosted him during a robbery operation in Owerri Imo State, arrested some bankers and a real estate agent, who were working for him.
The source explained that the IRT uncovered during it investigations that E-money, who was a dismissed Police Corporal working at the Imo State Police Command, also has links to a notorious armed robbery gang that specialized in hijacking oil vessels on the high sea and selling off its products to waiting buyers.
The source added that E-money, who joined the Nigeria Police Force in the 2009, made billions of naira of from his nefarious criminal activities and he bought several choice properties, including hotels and exotic cars, within Imo, Abia and Enugu State, within the space of two years.
It was gathered one of his friends, Onyekere, advised him to quit his police job and travel out of the country as people may start suspecting that he could have made his money through crime.
Vanguard learnt that E-money left his police job, traveled out of the country for weeks and when he returned he bought a hotel in Enugu and he made a deposit of N100 million to a fix deposit account, to which is wife was also a signatory.
The source said: “We commenced our investigations into the activities of this criminal in October 2017, who was a policeman at that time, after one Emmanuel and David Ofong were kidnapped along the Nsukka-Kogi Road, Enugu by a gang of kidnappers and a ransom of $2 million was demanded and paid for the release of one of the victims, David Ofong, while the kidnappers held on to Emmanuel Ofong and demanded for additional money.
“We went into the case and through the aid of advanced technology, we were able to establish that E-money was the man behind the kidnapping, but we had difficult arresting him then because he was always moving in out of the country and he moves with various vehicle numbers.
“Shockingly, we heard, in 2018, that he has been killed alongside two members of his gang.
“But since Chief Emmanuel Ofong, who he kidnapped was still missing, we continued our case with the hope of arresting more other members of his gangs.
“In the process, we arrested a banker working for him and he informed us that his wife had a fixed deposit account credited with N100 million and we also arrested a property agent who assisted him in buying his properties.
“We equally learned that all the vehicles bought by E-money were taken into hiding by relatives and we went after them and succeeded in recovering 13 of them.”
Meanwhile relatives of the late kidnapper, have accused the police of attempting to confiscate his buildings, vehicles and cash and turning it into their personal use.
They had written petitions to the National Human Rights Commission and the Amnesty International alleging operatives of IRT are showing undue interest in E-money’s properties.
But a lawyer working for the IRT, Nosa Uhumwangho, told Vanguard that the police have not violated any law in the recovery of properties purchased from proceeds of kidnapping and armed robbery from any robbery suspects.
Uhumwangho told Vanguard that the IRT got a banker’s order to freeze the account containing the N100 million.
They also recovered the buildings and vehicles belonging to the late suspected kidnapper before filing a motion for the temporarily forfeiture of funds, buildings and properties and cars belonging late suspects in a suit marked FHC/OW/CS/180/2018, before the Federal High Court, Owerri.
Uhumwangho explained that the all the vehicles recovered are in police custody, while the buildings are yet to be sealed as the police is yet to obtain a court order to that effect.
He added that most of the buildings are currently being occupied by tenants and no one is taking rents from them pending another from the court.
He also added that a relative to the wife of the late suspected kidnapper had previously filed a fundamental human rights suit against the police over the recovery of the properties and freezing of the bank accounts and the matter is before the High Court of Okigwe in suit number: HO/4/2018.
Vanguard.