The Niger State Police Command says its men have arrested a 33-year-old car mechanic, Mustapha Yusuf, of Barkin-Sale Area of Minna for stealing a car belonging to his customer.
The suspect was said to have fabricated another key which he used to steal the car from where the owner packed it.
The command’s public relations officer, DSP Wasiu Abiodun, said in a statement that the suspect was arrested with the car based on intelligence report.
He said the suspect was trailed and arrested at a hotel in Gabasawa area of Kaduna State, suspected to have stolen a vehicle from Minna.
Abiodun said on September 9, the car owner reported at GRA Police Division, that on the same date, he parked his Toyota Pontiac Vibe vehicle with Reg. No. MNA 974 SK at Dutsen-Kura, by London Street, Minna, but when he returned, the vehicle was missing from where it was parked.
“Upon preliminary investigation, the said Mustapha Yusuf, who is a road-side mechanic and had been responsible for the maintenance of the vehicle for the past four years, was suspected for the missing vehicle,” he said.
Abiodun added that the investigating team tried to locate the suspect in Minna, but he was not found. He was finally apprehended in Kaduna State with the said vehicle after four days.
He said during interrogation, the suspect confessed to having stolen the car from Dutsen-Kura and driving it to Kaduna and Zamfara states to sell.
He said he used a key that he made from the original to steal the car.
He was also said to have confessed that he had stolen a Honda Accord vehicle from the F-Layout area of Minna a few years back, and a Toyota RAV4 jeep from Barkin-Sale in 2019, all of which he took to Kaduna for disposal.
