Police arrest ‘mad man’ with 22 ATM cards, phones, bank tellers in Lagos

Operatives of the Rapid Response Squad (RRS) of Lagos State Police Command have arrested a suspected lunatic in possession of about 22 Automated Teller Machine (ATM) credit cards, two mobile phones and power bank, in Victoria Island of Lagos State.

The man, Lanrewaju Jaiyeola, 39, was intercepted by the operatives, after being sighted in a suspicious manner carrying a backpack on Ozumba Mbadiwe Road.

One of the police officers, who arrested Jaiyeola, said: “When we sighted him, he appeared like a mentally sick man but we invited him for interrogation, he answered and responded normal to all our inquiries.

“Afterwards, he started straying from the normal course of our inquiries. This raised further curiosity and we decided to check out his backpack. What we found was startling; 22 assorted credit cards, one Nokia phone with flat battery, a blackberry, a power bank, several bank tellers of recent bank transactions, and lots of invoices amidst numerous pieces of papers.

“On further scrutiny, we discovered that eight of the credit cards were still valid. Out of these; three would expire in 2018, another three would expire in 2017 while two would expire in 2016. All the credit cards bore different names and banks,” the officer said on condition of anonymity.

It was gathered that the suspect upon arrival at the RRS Headquarters in Alausa made statements suggestive of somebody disguising as a mad man to perpetrate crime around that axis.

“Initially, we noticed that he was mentally balanced because he was answering the questions posted to him adequately. But all of a sudden, he started sound incoherent and illogical,” the officer explained.

The police authority added that there was still more to what they discovered from the supposedly mad man. The suspect has been transferred to Special Anti-Robbery Squad where he will be subjected to further investigations and psychiatric examinations.