[News] Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) Official Has Been Arrested For Collecting N5000 Bribe

   SARS operatives

A Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) operative in Ikorodu has been arrested for threatening to kill a woman and her friend and collecting N5000 for their release.

Concise he official identified as Charles Omotosho, threatened to kill one Ifeoluwa Adegoke and her friends and granted them freedom after she paid him the sum of N5000.

Omotosho was arrested after Adegoke lodged the complaint on Nigerian Police official Twitter handle.

The complainant said she was forced to give the security official N5000 as he threatened to take her life.

She shared a photo evidence of the transaction on Twitter, revealing that the information of the bank transaction is what she used to locate the identity of the police officer.

With the evidence, she wrote: “With my encounter today, it is safe to say SARS men are armed robbers. My colleagues and I left Surulere for Ikorodu, where we were to do a photo shoot. We were four in the car and I was the only female.

“When we got to Ikorodu, the SARS operatives, who were in a vehicle, asked our driver to stop; they were five in their bus – all fully armed.

“They said we were suspected criminals and asked us to come down. They asked the driver to come down too. They checked the car, took our phones and went through them. When they did not find anything, they said we were thieves and cult members.

“When I challenged them that we did nothing wrong, one of them said he would slap me. I told my colleagues to keep calm because I knew it would be stupid for us to argue with armed policemen. I told my colleagues that they would demand money from us in the end.”

“After the search did not yield any fruit, the officials demanded N100,000.I took the operatives through my social media account to show them that we were managing to survive.

“But they said they did not care. I told the inspector that since we were not the kind of people they were looking for and since they did not find anything incriminating on us, they should just release us.

“They said they were going to release us because we were not the kind of people they were looking for; but they won’t release us for free. They started cocking their guns to threaten us; they said they would shoot us.

“I approached one of them and begged that we did not have the N100,000 because we were only young people searching for our daily bread. I told him that I had just N5,000 in my account and he should allow me to transfer it to them.

“The men refused to accede to our request after we did the transfer, they did not allow us to go until they got a credit alert on their mobile phone.

“When we left, I traced the name and discovered that his bank account name, Omotosho Olushola Charles, is the same he uses for his Facebook account. That was how I got his picture,” she added.

Reacting to the complaint, Abayomi Shogunle, Head of Public Complaint Rapid Response Unit, revealed the inspector had been arrested.

He wrote: “My dearest @ife_luv12, I am glad to inform you that the account owner has been identified – Inspector Charles Omotosho, FSARS Ikorodu, Lagos.

“He is in custody; preliminary investigation ongoing. PCRRU will inform you on the next line of action. Sorry for the experience.”

It was reported that Chike Oti, spokesperson for the Lagos State Police Command, confirmed the inspector’s arrest.

“We have arrested the policeman. His trial will commence soon. Any other person found culpable in the course of investigation will be made to face the full wrath of the law,” he said.