The press briefing was held yesterday at the Kairaba Police Station to update and enlighten the public on the new method of criminals using taxis to rob people.
It would be recalled that on 17 June, the police disclosed that they had arrested Abubacarr Touray, a 22-year-old taxi driver from Faji Kunda, for allegedly planning and carrying out a violent robbery as the leader of a six-person group, on June 16, 2024.
Briefing the media, Pateh Bah, Regional Crime Officer, explained how the robbery was planned and executed. He said: “Complainant Bài Nyass Bah and his friends from Abuko wanted a taxi to run their service for five days, and agreed with Abubacar Touray the principal suspect in this case, who does not have a taxi but has a friend who owns one, and lent him his taxi.
“He charged Bài Nyass D10,000 for the five days. Bai Nyass, unaware of Abubacarr Touray’s plan, agreed to the price charged. In the evening, he collected his friend and made an arrangement with the taxi driver and boarded the vehicle, and they went around until about midnight on the 16th of June. Unknown to Bài, the suspect had made an arrangement with his counterparts to hire another taxi to ambush him and his passengers.
“As they made these arrangements, that team also through the other suspect Demba Jarjue who also borrowed a taxi from someone who lives in Faji Kunda, boarded the vehicle and started moving their direction. They went ahead of them along the crime scene which is the Mile Seven road and pretended to have a breakdown. That was when the taxi that the main suspect was driving stopped and pretended to be making an enquiry as to what happened. That was when Demba and his counterpart rushed at the other vehicle and sprayed them with pepper spray at a knife point and threatened to harm them if they moved. That is how they robed them off their properties. Three mobile phones and a cash of D40,000.”
After the robbery, Officer Pateh said, Abubacarr, the main suspect who was still pretending to be unaware, suggested they report the case to the police at Bakau Police Station. Before they arrived at the police it was already after midnight, which fell on 17th June.
“When they arrived at the station, the matter was reported to the regional commissioner, who made arrangement for a team to be formed and follow the matter, as it was a serious one,” Pateh explained.
“With his coordination, he contacted me and I also made coordination. As we started our questioning we later realised that Abubacarr was the mastermind of the robbery and he started confessing by revealing the plans and his counterparts.”
Officer Pateh further narrated: “Through Abubacarr’s cooperation, we mobilised a task force to search for them. He led us and luckily we were able to arrest all of them. We arrested Demba Jarjue at Kotu, Ebrima Sarr, Edrissa Ceesay and Ebrima Konateh at Faji Kunda and brought them to Bakau CID where they were engaged and they confessed to the robbery.”
He said they also led the police to recover the mobile phones and money stolen from the complainant. However, the entire D40,000 was not found, but D3,900 was found with one of the suspects, and another D2,000 was found in the vehicle Abubacarr was using.
Officer Pateh said the police would continue the investigation and search to gather more evidence and recover the stolen items.
