The operative of the Delta State Community Vigilante have arrested a dismissed police officer for vandalising government property in the State.
The dismissed police officer, an indigene of Agbor in Ika South Local Government Area of Delta State, was arrested on Monday after he broke into a residential apartment and attempted to cart away some valuables, including phones.
Reports said the 45-year-old suspect was notorious for breaking into government schools in the community to steal metals and valuables, which he sells as scrap.
Confessing to the crime on Tuesday, the suspect, who gave his name as Benedict Sunday, said he was dismissed from the police force in 2018.
Sunday confessed that he engaged in the crime by using a fake police identity card, bearing a Warrant ID card and the rank of Inspector, to arrest commercial motorcyclists without plate numbers at College Junction axis every evening, adding that he asked his victims to pay him or have their motorcycle seized.
The suspect said he was sorry for his actions, claiming that hunger pushed him into crime.
Chairman of the vigilante group, Mr. Aliemeke Onyekachukwu, said the suspect had been terrorising the community and environs.
Onyekachukwu stated that they received several complaints about him, adding that he had always been evading arrest.
“We have been trailing him for long and today God has delivered him into our hands. The phone he stole was recovered from the bush path he hid the phone and other items he stole,” he said.
He stated that the suspect would be handed over to the police in Agbor division for further investigation.