Notorious car snatcher arrested

Source: Daily Graphic Ghana  -  A man described by the police as a notorious car snatcher has been arrested by the Mile Seven Police, in Accra.

The 21-year-old suspect, Isaac Owusu, is said to have snatched four taxis in two weeks within the Mile Seven area with an accomplice identified as Aziz Mohammed.

The accomplice is currently on the run.

The two are said to have offered the stolen vehicles for sale after re-spraying and changing the registration number plates of the cars.

Briefing the Daily Graphic, the Mile Seven District Police Commander, Mr Henry Agbeve, said he believed Owusu and his accomplice had been working with some personnel of the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA).

He said the police had since mounted a manhunt for the DVLA personnel alleged to have supplied Owusu and his accomplice with fake number plates.

Mr Agbeve said Owusu was arrested in his hideout on May 21, 2015 at Swedru, in the Central Region.

He said the Mile Seven Police received complaints in May this year from four victims.

On the modus operandi of the two suspects, he said, armed with a machete and a gun, they would hire the services of taxi drivers from Mile Seven to Tabora, near Lapaz with the false claim that they were going to see their girlfriends.

“At a point, near Family Life School, around New Achimota, the suspects would divert the course of the driver and then order him to stop,” Mr Agbeve said.

When their victims stopped, he said, Isaac Owusu would pretend to call the supposed girlfriends and ask for the exact direction to their house.

He said Mohammed would then pull a pistol on the driver, while Isaac Owusu, who usually sat in the passenger’s seat behind the driver, would try to strangle the driver and then push him out of the car.

They would then drive the car away leaving the driver to his fate.

On one occasion, Mr Agbeve said, Mohammed used the pistol to hit the taxi driver on the head when he attempted to raise an alarm.

He said one of the cars, a Nisan Almera, with registration number GR 6784-14, was taken to Kumasi Old Tafo for sale.

According to Mr Agbeve, while the suspects were in the process of selling the car, the buyer suspected them and alerted the police, but the two men escaped in a waiting taxi before the police arrived.

He said two of the snatched cars, which were Toyota Corolla with registration numbers GS 5171-14 and GG 1227-14, were taken to Swedru in the Central Region for sale.

He said the registration numbers of the cars were changed to GR 3139-14 and GN 130-14 respectively.

One of the cars, which had been repainted, he said, was identified by the owner who spotted some identification marks in the interior of the car.

He said the original owner of the car identified it after his friend had bought the car at Swedru and brought it to Accra, with the intention of using it for a taxi.

With the assistance of the car owner and his friend, whose names are being withheld, he said the police managed to arrest Owusu who mentioned Mohammed as his accomplice.

A search in Owusu’s house led to the retrieval of a locally manufactured gun.

During interrogation, Mr Agbeve said Owusu confessed that he and his accomplice were responsible for the snatching of all the four cars.

Three of the cars have been retrieved, but the fourth car, with registration number GW 8860-14, which Owusu claimed was sold at Pokuase, near Accra, is yet to be recovered.