Duru was kidnapped along Bishops Court, Area 7, Orji/Uratta Owerri in his black Mercedes Benz car.
The Nigeria Police Force has confirmed the arrest of a gang of kidnappers allegedly responsible for the abduction and murder of retired Major General Richard Duru in September 2023.
Duru was kidnapped along Bishops Court, Area 7, Orji/Uratta Owerri in his black Mercedes Benz car.
The kidnappers killed him after a ransom of $50,000 was collected from his family.
The suspected killers were paraded by the Imo Police Command at its command headquarters in Owerri the Imo state capital, together with 32 other suspected criminals involved in various degrees of crime across the state.
The Imo Public Relations Officer, Henry Okoye, described the arrest as a result of the proactive operational strategies adopted by the command’s personnel.
He said the arrest was carried out by the operatives of the anti-kidnapping unit of the command through a sustained follow-up of intelligence gathering.
He disclosed that one of the suspects identified as Chukwunonso Emmanuel was arrested in Lagos while trying to obtain a new number plate for the car stolen from the late Duru.
According to him, the arrest of Emmanuel led to the arrest of two members of the gang, Okoroigwe Goodness and Innocent Ogu.
The suspects have confessed to the crime, according to the police.
Okoye said in the last two months, the command arrested 435 suspects for various criminal offences ranging from murder to kidnapping, armed robbery, terrorism, advance fee-fraud, cultism activities, stealing and receiving stolen properties.
“A total of 48 different firearms and 552 various calibres of live ammunition were recovered in the course of intelligence-led operations, continuous raids of suspected criminal hideouts, and painstaking investigations during which 13 kidnapped victims were rescued unhurt and 10 snatched vehicles were recovered,” he said.
He commended the operatives of the Command’s Anti-Kidnapping Unit led by CSP Oladimeji Odeyeyiwa, for their proactiveness in apprehending the suspected criminals who have been terrorising the state.
He assured that the command under the Commissioner of Police, Danjuma Aboki, will not relent in its fight against banditry and all forms of criminality in the state.
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