Operatives attached to Akinpelu Divisional Police, Lagos State Police Command have arrested eight POS operators for operating businesses close to the station.
The arrested operators were hauled to the station where they were detained and thereafter extorted ten thousand naira each.
According to one of the pos operators’ names withheld, the DPO said that there is now a memo from the office of the IGP that it is illegal to run any POS business in the vicinity of a police station. We were later asked to bail ourselves from detention with ten thousand naira each. And come back on Monday for our seized machines.
Nigeriacrime.com learned that seven of the operators complied with the bail conditions while Sunkanmi Abu who refused to pay ten thousand naira to effect his bail was detained.
Confirming the incident the spokesman of Lagos state police command SP Benjamin Hundeyin noted that it has been observed over time that some roving POS operators specialise in hanging around police stations. Investigations reveal that their target customers are innocent Nigerians being extorted by some recalcitrant police officers.”
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“Their presence around the stations has made the extortion game a lot easier. While the Force continually purges itself of these bad officers, It has become imperative that the activities of POS operators around police stations be regulated.
Some of them have been identified to be enablers of extortion. This regulation is in line with our mandate of not just detecting but also preventing crime. To this end, anyone found to have knowingly enabled extortion will be treated as an accomplice.”