Delta kidnap kingpin, Kelvin, nabbed

A combined team of Army and Department of State  Security Services, (SSS), operatives, in a coded military operation, seized, in the early hours ofWednesday the most wanted kidnapper/armed robbery kingpin in Delta State, Kelvin Oniarah, and five of his gang members, in an undisclosed hotel in Port-Harcourt, Rivers State.

There was, however, a shootout, yesterday afternoon between Kelvin’s ‘boys’ in his country home, Kokori, Ethiope-East Local Government Area, Delta State and soldiers who arrested the chief priest (Ose Igba) said to have provided native charms for Kelvin and his gang to evade arrest over the years. The diminutive kidnap kingpin, rounded up in the hotel, where he was hibernating with his gang had been terrorizing the state and other states in the South-South, South-East and South-West for some years running.
The gangster who is likened to the notorious robbery kingpin, Lawrence Nomanyagbon Anini, dreadfully called ‘The Law’ in the defunct Bendel State, was allegedly “picked up like an ant’ with his lieutenants, according to an informed security source. Two members of the gang reportedly escaped arrest. It gathered that Kelvin and five others arrested with him were flown to Abuja for further interrogation.
“Kelvin knew he was being monitored, but did not know his end was so near. He lived like a big boy, traversing Delta, Port-Harcourt, Enugu, Ibadan and Lagos, where he has tentacles and business interest,” a source added. It was learnt the police were sidetracked in the operation by the army and SSS, as neither the police in Rivers and Delta states were aware of the operation until it was concluded.
The hoodlum, who described himself as leader of the newly-found Liberation Movement of the Urhobo People, LIMUP, said he had become a freedom fighter and vowed to carry out his threat if his 60 days ultimatumt the Federal Government was not complied with.
It gathered that the security agencies in the country were infuriated by the impudence displayed by Kelvin in issuing a 60-day ultimatum to Federal Government and even challenging security operatives to a combat. It was learnt that the top echelon of the army and SSS strategized and mapped out a ‘battle plan”on how to arrest Kelvin. SSS operatives did the intelligence part of the work by tracking the kingpin to the hotel, where he fled to in Port-Harcourt after breaching security in Delta State last week.
Unknown to Kelvin, who thought the hotel was safe for him, security operatives got information about his presence in the lodge and carefully monitored him before they struck at the crack of dawn. His hometown, Kokori, has been taken over by soldiers said to be on internal military operation, since Monday.