The police in Zamfara State have apprehended a 48-year-old Algerian gunrunner, a local manufacturer of AK-47 rifles, terrorist collaborators, and illegal miners in the state.
The Commissioner of Police, CP Muhammad Dalijan, disclosed this while parading the suspects before journalists at the Command’s Headquarters in Gusau, the state capital.
He said the gunrunner was arrested while moving a cache of arms and ammunition, intended for delivery to terrorists’ hideouts in Zamfara State, Northwest Nigeria.
The police authorities said it has made another major success in the fight against banditry, by arresting the Algerian gunrunner, a local gun manufacturer, and other suspected terrorist collaborators, during the coordinated operations in the state.
The Commissioner of Police, CP Muhammad Dalijan, told journalists that the police has been trailing the trafficker of firearms that has been moving firearms from Algeria through Niger Republic to Nigeria for the past eight years, to the various terrorist camps in Zamfara State.
He said the police acted on credible information that the gunrunner was leaving Algeria and was going through Niger to Nigeria, prompting the command to deploy its men to the Ilela border in Sokoto State, where they ambushed and arrested him.
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He also revealed that police operatives arrested a Nigerian who manufactures locally-made AK-47 rifles, from Plateau State.
Other suspects the police nabbed included some suppliers of motorcycles to terrorists.
They were picked up while on their way to purchase motorcycles for the terrorists.
Items recovered from the suspects were nineteen AK-47 rifles, several live ammunition and cash worth N2.5 million, charms, Indian hemp, a Mobile Phone Power Bank, mining machines, and an excavator, among others.
(Editor : Ena Agbanoma)
