A 39-year-old man, who disguised as a lunatic, was yesterday arrested by operatives of the Rapid Response Squad (RRS) in Lagos. He was in possession of 22 Automated Teller Machine (ATM) Cards, phones and power banks as at the time of arrest.

The suspect, Lanrewaju Jaiyeola, was arrested after a tipoff by the residents, who were worried over increasing numbers of people pretending to be insane in the area. Jaiyeola was under watch for almost two weeks before he was arrested.

He was arrested along Ozumba Mbadiwe Road, Victoria Island, while wandering with a backpack containing the recovered exhibits. An official of the RRS, who pleaded anonymity, said: “When we sighted him, he appeared to be a mentally sick man. But we chatted with him. He answered and responded normally to all our enquiries.

Afterwards, he started straying from the normal course of our enquiries. This further raised our curiosity. We decided to check his backpack. We found 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.”

The police officer added: “On further scrutiny, we discovered that eight of the credit cards were still valid. Out of these, three will expire in 2018, another three will expire in 2017, while two will expire in 2016. The credit cards have different names and banks.

Upon arrival at the RRS Headquarters in Alausa, the suspect made statements suggestive of somebody disguising as a mad man to perpetrate crime around that axis. Initially, we noticed he was okay because he answered questions adequately.

But all of a sudden, he started to sound incoherent.” According to the police, there was still more to the supposedly ‘mad man.’ According to the source, during interrogation, Jaiyeola threatened the Investigative Police Officer (IPO).

He allegedly said: “I will make life unbearable for you if you don’t let me go.” “It was at this point we realised he might be enjoying the patronage of some highly placed people,” added the officer. Jaiyeola has been transferred to Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), Ikeja, for further investigations and psychiatric examinations.

NEWTELEGRAGH