E-Money: Two years after, SARS tracks down fleeing kidnap suspect

Post Date : March 29, 2020

Ifeanyi Asiatugbulam appears to be an incorrigible kidnap suspect.

While he was still at large and wanted for his criminal escapades, he was still busy plotting and executing more kidnap operations.

Asiatugbulam was also popular for  evading arrest and escaping from captivity.

after two years of fleeing from the law, he must have assumed himself invisible and his trail wiped clean.

What he did not bother to do was to check the record of the crack  team of Special Anti-Robbery Squad after him.

If he did, he would have known that from the records, the team led by CSP Victor Godfrey were experts in tracking down suspects no matter how far they have fled or how cold the trail may seem.

Expectedly, on the 25th of March, 2020 at 04:30 hours at Ikot Akwa in Nsit Atai council area of  Akwa Ibom state, following a credible intelligence, a SARS operation coordinated by CSP Victor Godfrey busted and arrested the last suspect of the notorious kidnap gang of the deceased millionaire kingpin and Ex-police Corporal, Collins Ezenwa popularly known as E-money.

another suspect was however arrested with him.

The two arrested suspects are Asiatugbulam Ifeanyi  (34)  and Kingsley Udo Johnson (20 ).

It will be recalled that Ifeanyi Asiatugbulam is the only surviving kidnap suspects who escaped while the late Ex-Corporal Okoronkwo Collins Ezenwa (E-money) and two others were gunned down in a gun duel with SARS operatives on the 27th of January, 2018 when operatives stormed their kidnap den at Atta in Ikeduru council area of Imo state.

The four kidnap suspects upon sighting SARS operatives had opened fire, but were overpowered by the superior firepower of the SARS men.

Three were gunned down while Ifeanyi escaped.

On 20th April, 2018, the same fleeing Ifeanyi Asiatugbulam was arrested in another kidnap case where a lady, one Onyia Destiny Chinyere was kidnapped and being driven to their kidnap den at Oru East, Imo state.

As fate would have it, they were intercepted by SARS and Ogbaku police operatives along Owerri/Onitsha road.

 One of the suspects popularly known as Mopol was shot dead  and Ifeanyi was arrested with one AK-47 rifle and 54 live 7.6mm ammunition recovered from him.

Mysteriously, Ifeanyi Asiatugbulam escaped again from police custody.

With great resilience, the SARS team went back to the drawing board and reconstructed available intelligence and eventually picked up a trail on the suspect which led them to Akwa Ibom where Asiatugbulam and his associate was arrested in their hideout in a remote village.

According to available report, suspect has since confessed to the crimes and further indicted Collins Ezenwa  (E-money)  as a gang leader and kidnap kingpin.

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