Following the discovery of 10 missing children with a child thief cartel in Abuja penultimate week, another breakthrough was made on Friday when a three-year-old boy was found in Onitsha, Anambra State.
The boy, Mi’iraj Masud, and his elder brother were allegedly stolen by a new tenant in their compound on Kaduna Road in Tafa LGA of Niger State in November last year, City & Crime learnt.
Father of the children, Masud Muktar, told City & Crime yesterday that Mi’iraj was located by the police who traced him to the Eastern part of the country.
He said the elder brother of the boy, Nabil Masud (seven), was the first to be located in the custody of a pastor in Ushafa community in Bwari Area Council of the FCT.
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He said the two children were allegedly stolen by their tenants who endeared themselves to his children by offering them biscuits and soft drinks before committing the act while he was away in Kano.
Muktar explained that while the youngest child was renamed Ebuka by an Onitsha woman, the pastor on the other hand renamed the elderly one Isaiah.
Mother of the children, Sa’adiyya Masud, who travelled to the police headquarters in Minna to receive the children, identified two suspects in police custody, Saviour Ebuka (20) and Mary Peter (25), as the couple.
She equally identified a third suspect arrested by the police from an Abuja orphanage in Lugbe as the woman who introduced the two suspects to their landlord.
The Niger State police spokesperson, DSP Wasiu Abiodun, said all the suspects would be taken to court after investigation.