Robbers use sex worker to trick victims

A 27-year-old commercial sex worker, Victoria Amodu, who was arrested by the police as a suspected robber, has said she played a “vital role” for her gang during their operations.

Amodu, who hails from Benin, Edo State, was arrested by the Lagos State Police Command at a brothel in Seme, near Badagry.

The police said apart from commercial sex work, Amodu allegedly belonged to a gang of robbers who were notorious for picking unsuspecting passengers in flashy cars and robbing them at gunpoint.

Amodu was arrested by the Special Anti-Robbery Squad after a member of the gang, Ahmed Isiaka, who had earlier been apprehended, named her as an accomplice. Continue..

Amodu explained that her role during robbery operations was to sit beside the driver so that their victims would feel secured after seeing a woman in the vehicle.

She said, “During any robbery operation, I would dress casually and sit in the front beside the driver. Isiaka was the driver. Our vehicle usually plied Seme to Lagos areas. The passengers, picked on sighting me in the vehicle, would come in without suspicion.

“Then after going for a while, the driver would receive a signal from other vehicles at our back where other gang members were, and we would stop at a lonely area and rob our victims.

“After the robbery, the vehicles would zoom off to another area to pick a fresh round of passengers. That was how we operated. From each of the operations, they gave me between N10,000 and N15,000.

“One of the gang members named Okanlawon had come to the brothel where I operated and took me out for the night. He was the one that introduced me to other members of the gang and later to their work. I was not the only lady the gang used.”

Amodu, who said she was a divorcee, added that she took to commercial sex work as a result of poverty.

Also, other areas in Lagos where the gang robbed passengers were Iyana Oba, Agbara and Oko Afo. He added that he had first been arrested by the Ojo Police Division before he was brought to SARS.

He said, “I was the driver who worked with Victoria (Amodu). We don’t come out until around 8.30pm. With Victoria in the front seat, it was easy to pick many passengers without arousing their suspicion.

“We were arrested because one of the victims we robbed, a woman, wrote down the vehicle’s registration number and reported her experience to the police.

“Few days later, the police found the vehicle, stopped and arrested me.”