‘I recruited my kidnapping gang from prison connections’

A suspected kidnapper, Kenneth Levi, has narrated how he came into kidnapping, and later formed his own gang of kidnappers, by leveraging on his friends who were in prison to link him up with other criminals who were into the act.

He also narrated that when he wanted to move on to another level to become his own boss, he again called in favours from the friends in prison to recruit other people of like mind to form his own gang.

Kenneth was part of a five-man gang of armed and dangerous kidnappers that plied their trade of terror in Imo State. They were tracked down and busted by operatives of the Inspector-General of Police Intelligence Response Team, led by CSP Abba Kyari.

Kenneth narrates his story: “I am from Osisioma Ngwa and 32 years-old. I’m not married, but my girlfriend is pregnant. I dropped out of school after JSS3 because of money. My father had seven children and life was very hard for all of us. I did menial jobs till I came of age to open a chemist store. I did well till fire gutted the shop in 2010. During those days, I had friends who were into bad things and they ended up in prison. They are Chima and Obinna and they are still in prison at the moment. They are my village brothers and were arrested over car snatching.

“When they got to the prison, they met Richard, an inmate who told them that ‘they’ had a very big gun somewhere.

They said that they had a gun somewhere and that Chimakpa their brother would show them where the guns were hidden.

“My brothers called me from the prison and I visited them. They insisted that I must come personally, that it was not something they could discuss on phone. They convinced me that they needed me to work for them in order to raise money to pursue their case. They convinced me that they needed that gun to raise money to pursue their case. They asked me to go back and wait for a call from Chimakpa, and he later called me and we met. I met Chimakpa at an agreed spot and he was driving a Range Rover. He told me that he just came back from prison. They gave him my numbers, and he showed me the guns and said that we would use it for ‘KP’ (kidnapping).

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“I agreed to work with him, not just to help those in prison but because I needed money. He refused to work with me because I did not have a car. He specifically told me that I needed a car if I wanted to work with him. I had to convince my dad to sell one of his lands to raise money for me. He had no choice because he had already lost two of his sons to death. I was so special to him. I used the money to buy a car, and called him back that I was ready to work. To convince him that I was ready, Chimakpa transferred all the guns into my car and we used it for several kidnappings. Gradually, he introduced me to some of his gang members and that was how I met Onyema. I also helped them to buy AK-47 rifles from Calabar.

“We also did a lot of work but I realised that Chimakpa and his close friends were cheating me because they were the owners of the guns. I started giving excuses so that I can have reasons to start my own gang. Luckily, Chimakpa was arrested and since I had access to those guns, I started looking for my gang members. My brothers in prison linked me up with Richard’s number. Richard is an inmate with several links outside. He was the one who introduced me to Ugochukwu.

“Ugochukwu is based in Imo State and all the jobs that we did were in Owerri. In one of the incidents, police tracked us down and we escaped. They confiscated my car and in attempt to recover it, I reported to the nearest police station and they alerted the anti-kidnapping department who detained me. I kept denying and praying that none of my gang members should be arrested. When they got tired of detaining me, they released me and handed the car over to me.”

On how he was arrested, he said: “I was in my house, one of my friends called me asking for where to buy ammunition.”

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