Five persons suspected to be behind the snatching of cars at Amasaman in the Greater Accra Region and its environs have been arrested. The five men, including two alleged buyers of the stolen cars, are said to have been respraying the cars before they sell them.
The suspects are: Kwame Fosu, 23; Simon Mensah, 25; Philip Ayisi, 23; Bismark Amofa, 37; and Jones Osei, 20. The police have since retrieved four taxicabs which had been resprayed as private cars.
The Deputy Accra Regional Police Commander, Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP), Mr Timothy Bonga, said the suspects had been targeting Toyota Corolla, Nissan Micra and Nissan Almera taxicabs.
He said they hired the taxis and when they reached a quiet destination they pulled machetes or guns with which they threatened the drivers and seized their cars’ ignition keys. They later resprayed the cars, produced falsified documents and sold them.
The five persons, he said, were arrested in relation to a case in which three suspected robbers attempted to snatch a Toyota Echo taxicab with registration number GE 4026-15 from the driver, at about 11:40p.m, on October 23, 2015, near the Amasaman Court.
Upon their arrest, Mr Bonga said, they confessed snatching more than four cars at Amasaman and its environs and mentioned Bismark and Osei as the buyers of the stolen cars.
He said they also mentioned three other persons identified only as Kito and Amesroe who live at Madina, a suburb of Accra, as their accomplices and Kobby, based in Kumasi, also as the receiver of one of the stolen cars.
One of the suspects, Simon Mensah, was said to have led the police to Kumasi where he identified Amofa and Osei as the receivers of the stolen cars.
He also assisted the police to retrieve one of the stolen cars, a Nissan Almera taxicab, which had been resprayed and given a fake registration number, GN 6704-14, and a Toyota Corolla taxicab which had also been resprayed.
Osei is said to have admitted buying the cars from Mensah but claimed the cars were resold in Accra to some persons he could not identify
