A syndicate suspected to specialise in stealing tricycles and killing their owners and burying their remains in shallow graves has been arrested by the Police in Enugu.

They include a middle-aged man, Nonso Azubuike, and his accomplice, Kennedy Ihunegbo, who was said to have died at the Enugu State University Teaching Hospital (ESUT) following gunshot wounds he received while escaping arrest.

Enugu State Police Commissioner, Mr Elochukwu Nwodibo, who paraded

Azubuike alongside 19 other suspects caught in various offences, said Azubuike and Ihunegbo were involved in the stealing and killing of tricycle riders in Enugu and burying them in shallow graves.

Azubuike, who confessed to the crime, said they had so far killed seven tricycle riders, stressing: “Our motive basically was to take the tricycles and sell them.”

He added that the seven tricycles they took from their victims were sold at N350,000.

The police boss, who spoke about their modus operandi said: “The duo ask each tricycle operator conveying them to drop them at their purported building site, normally in a lonely place. They would then request the operator to carry blocks for them in the tricycle, to another location. The tricycle operator would be hit by them with a very big iron hammer on the head repeatedly as he bent to carry the block till he died.

•Sourced from The Guardian. Photo shows Acting Force PRO, ACP Olabisi Kolawole.