Cash abandoned by the robbers

Okafor Ofiebor/Port Harcourt.

A crack team of Special anti-robbery squad from the Rivers State Police Command at about 5 p.m  today foiled a robbery by a  seven-man  gang who attacked a bullion van belonging to  Diamond Bank regional office located in Trans Amadi in Port Harcourt, the state capital.

The Police detectives who acted on a tip off swooped on the robbers who had succeeded in looting  millions of Naira from the bullion van. The money in bags were  stacked inside their operational vehicle,  which they abandoned after they faced gun fire from the police.

The police later took the vehicle to the Command’s headquarters located along Moscow road Port Harcourt.

One of the vehicles used by the robbers

Our Correspondent counted nine  bags with bundles of naira mainly in 1,000 naira denomination stuffed inside a  Lexus GX 470, SUV with plate number Rivers KRK 209 BX.

At the time of filing the report,  some of the bank staff had been  deployed to Police headquarters with their counting machines to count the actual amount of the  recovered cash which are in hundreds of millions of naira.

It was learnt that the armed bandits escaped and abandoned their operational vehicle, when they could not withstand the fireworks from the policemen.

Preliminary information so far revealed that the robbers may have acted on information or they may have  trailed the  bullion van to the bank premises.

State Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), Ahmad Muhammad, a Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) confirmed that the Command received a distress call few minutes after 5 pm, and responded swiftly.

Muhammad stated that the robbers abandoned the vehicle containing the cash and escaped with another vehicle.

He could not confirm the amount recovered, but said it could be in “three digits in millions”.

Also recovered from them were one AK 47 rifle, pistol and three magazines.