Agents of the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons, working with the Department of State Services, have arrested a female truck driver and six other suspects in Abuja, dismantling an interstate child trafficking organisation.
In a statement released on Tuesday, Vincent Adekoye, the Chief Press Officer for NAPTIP, disclosed that the gang specialised in kidnapping and smuggling minors from one region of Nigeria to another.
While attempting to sell a three-year-old child who had been taken from Damaturu, Yobe State, they were apprehended.
Hasana Jacob, 33, from the Mangu Local Government Area of Plateau State, was arrested as a consequence of the operation. He drives a truck for a cement plant in Obajana, close to Lokoja, Kogi State.
Jacob was caught while trying to sell a three-year-old child who was purportedly taken from Damaturu, Yobe State.
Suspected trafficking network members Ali Muhammed, Adamu Jacob, Abubakar Ahmed, Murtala Tanimu, Shamsu Tanimu, and Aisha Suleiman were also taken into custody.
According to Adekoye, preliminary investigations showed that the gang specialised in kidnapping children one year of age and above, transporting them across the nation in a branded cement truck to avoid suspicion, and selling them to unidentified purchasers for up to N600,000 apiece.
According to reports, the gang operates through a network of recruiters and purchasers who are positioned strategically throughout several states, making it simple to relocate and quickly dispose of abducted children.
The statement said, “The report indicates that because Hasana is a truck driver with this popular cement company, it was very easy for her to steal children at any of the terminals across the country, evade security checks on the roads, and deliver such stolen children to her gang members at any location without being noticed.”
The statement strongly suspected the syndicate has membership across the country with different roles, stressing that while some members of the trafficking ring hunt and lure victims to the truck terminal, where they will be picked up by Hasana, others arrange interested buyers at any of the terminals across the country even before the arrival of the victim, thereby making it fast for the gang leader to dispose of the stolen child and collect her money.
NAPTIP’s Director-General, Binta Bello, while reacting to the development, described the incident as a “heinous crime against humanity” and expressed shock over the role played by Jacob in leading the syndicate.
Represented by the Director of Research and Programme Development, Mr. Josiah Emerole, she said that she was deeply saddened by the latest arrest, saying that it is painful to note that human beings will organise a criminal gang, use a branded vehicle of a company, move from one part of the country to another, steal children belonging to other families, and sell them to interested buyers whose motives for the children are not known.
She went on to say that it is unthinkable and a reprehensible act of depravity, adding that they cause those families to suffer forever and then smile to the bank after selling their children.
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She pointed out that it hurts worse when a woman who understands the suffering of parenthood is at the top of the wicked syndicate.
The Director General commended the DSS for its unwavering support and collaboration, which, she said, was crucial to the success of the operation and called on other law enforcement agencies and stakeholders to deepen cooperation to protect Nigerian children from the menace of trafficking.
The 22-tyre cement truck used in the illicit operation has since been impounded by NAPTIP as investigations continue.
