The search for the killers of police Inspector Matthew allegedly killed by cultists at Eight Miles, Calabar, Cross River State, has led to the arrest of a robbery kingpin, Ikechukwu Okereke.
Police officers involved in the search for Matthew's killers, said Okereke had, in his possession, illegal firearms when he was arrested.
A senior police officer at the state Criminal Investgation Department, Mr. Joseph Inuyashe, said what gave Okereke out was a mobile phone, which was stolen after a recent robbery incident at the Akamkpa area of the Calabar-Ikom highway.
"We decided to detain the suspect for his unsatisfactory explanation about the source of the phone and the firearms," he said.
Inuyashe said after browsing through the content of the phone, it was found out that one of the text messages was incriminating.
He said one the text messages read, "God will not allow you to go unpunished. You will soon be arrested; all of you that robbed our vehicle and collected our hard-earned money and other valuable property. You do not know how we suffered to get the money, you will surely be arrested."
Poised to get details concerning the source of message, Inuyashe said they decided to contact its owner through the recovered SIM.
He said, "When we called the person who sent the text message to the phone, we asked him if he could identify the owner of the phone and he said it was his phone that was seized from him, when armed robbers attacked them at Akamkpa."
He was later invited to state CID, where he told the police that they were robbed at Akamkpa, alleging Okereke was one of the gang members.
The Punch