The National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP), in collaboration with the Department of State Services (DSS), has dismantled an interstate child trafficking syndicate and arrested seven suspects, including a female truck driver.
NAPTIP’s Chief Press Officer, Vincent Adekoye, disclosed this in a statement on Tuesday, March 25, revealing that the syndicate was caught attempting to sell a three-year-old girl stolen from Damaturu, Yobe State.
The arrested suspects include 33-year-old Hasana Jacob, a truck driver for a well-known cement company in Obajana, Kogi State, as well as Aisha Suleiman, Murtala Tanimu, Shamsu Tanimu, Adamu Jacob, Abubakar Ahmed, and Ali Muhammed.
Preliminary investigations showed that the group specialised in abducting children, transporting them across states using a branded cement truck to evade suspicion, and selling them for up to ₦600,000 each. The syndicate reportedly had a network of recruiters and buyers across the country.
“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,” Adekoye stated.
He added that the syndicate had members with specific roles, from recruiting and luring children to arranging buyers before victims even arrived at their destinations.
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NAPTIP’s Director-General, Binta Bello, described the case as a “heinous crime against humanity” and expressed shock over Jacob’s role as the leader.
“I am deeply saddened by the latest arrest. 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.
“They create everlasting sorrow and pain for those families and smile to the bank after selling those children. This is unimaginable and it is a condemnable act of wickedness.
“This is more painful when the arrowhead of this evil syndicate is a woman who knows the pain of motherhood,” she said, as represented by NAPTIP’s Director of Research and Programme Development, Josiah Emerole.
Bello commended the DSS for its collaboration and urged other security agencies to strengthen efforts to protect Nigerian children from trafficking.
Meanwhile, NAPTIP has impounded the 22-tire cement truck used in the operation as investigations continue.