Two grabbed over phone theft

A 64-year-old man and his 49-year-old accomplice are in the grip of the police for allegedly stealing a phone in a mobile phone shop at Tip Toe Lane, near the Kwame Nkrumah Circle Interchange, at Kokomlemle in Accra.

The two, Emmanuel Noi and Christopher William Nii Offei, were taken to the Tesano Police Station after they were given severe beatings by some traders upon their arrest.

CCTV

The Public Relations Officer of the Accra Regional Police Command, Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Mrs. Effia Tenge, said last Tuesday, the two suspects entered the mobile phone shop under the pretext of buying a phone.

As a ploy to distract the attention of the shop attendant, she said Offei engaged the shop attendant in a conversation while Noi took one of the phones which had been displayed for sale on the blind side of the attendant.

Unknown to the two, the shop owner was monitoring the close circuit camera (CCTV) in the shop, and saw what the two men were doing, and raised the alarm.

The news attracted people in the neighbourhood, including traders and shoppers, as the men endured a torrid experience in the hands of the people.

Torrid experience

It turned out that two men were the same pair captured on an earlier CCTV footage which had gone viral in which they used the same method to steal a laptop from a shop on the Spintex Road.

Mrs. Tenge said during interrogation, the police found out that the suspects had been captured on other CCTV cameras in a number of shops  stealing laptops and phones from electronic and phone shops in Osu, Kasoa and Tema.