The Delta State Police Command has concluded arrangements to arraign a couple for allegedly stage-managing the kidnap of their daughter.
It was gathered from police sources on Tuesday that having discovered that the purported kidnap was a ruse, the next line of action was to prosecute the man and his wife “for raising a false alarm.”
A top ranking police officer at the ‘B’ Division, Warri, told our correspondent that arrangements had been concluded to arraign the couple.
The 21-year-old daughter, who was purported to have been kidnapped, according to sources, is an employee of a commercial bank in Warri.
It was gathered that the police arrested the couple on Sunday after the operatives, who had been monitoring the incident, received intelligence that the parents allegedly stage-managed their daughter’s abduction.
The command had recently declared 21-year-old Stephine Oghenevoke missing, noting that Stephine of Okumagba Estate, Delta State who is 5ft tall, dark in complexion, with no tribal marks and who speaks Pidgin English and Urhobo languages fluently reportedly left home on July 19, 2021 around 8.20am for work at the Okumagba Estate and had not returned since then.
The police said all efforts to trace her whereabouts ever since had proved abortive and called on anyone with useful information about her to please report to the ‘B’ Division Warri, the Police Public Relations Officer’s office in Asaba or the nearest police station.
Sources, however, said the parents of Stephine, who reside on Olomu Street in Warri, were still being interrogated by the Police ‘B’ Division, Warri, as of the time of filing this report.
One of the sources alleged that Stephine, a staff of Heritage Bank, located at Okumagba Estate, Warri, Delta State had helped her parents to secure a loan of N17m from the bank.
It was learnt that the couple borrowed the money from the bank for business development but failed to pay back the loan for a long period while the bank had been on their throat to return the loan, to no avail.
But it was gathered that the couple in an attempt to raise money to defray the loan had purportedly resorted to stage-managing their daughter’s kidnap.
Meanwhile, the alleged kidnap victim was reportedly arrested by operatives of the ‘B’ Division, Warri, on Tuesday morning and she is presently helping the police in their investigations, security sources said.
When contacted, the acting Police Public Relations Officer for the state, DSP Bright Edafe, confirmed that the embattled father was in police custody in Warri.
The PPRO could not, however, give more details about the incident. – Punch.
