A collaboration between Police and telecom operators has led to the arrest of a 26-year-old man who reportedly kidnapped two children from a primary school in Ghana on Friday.
Collins James Kodah, a native of Navrongo in the Upper East Region, was arrested at his Asante Akyem Agogo hideout with the two children he kidnapped.
He had earlier demanded a ransom from the children’s parents. The victims aged seven and nine.
However, intervention from Police led to the arrest of the suspect and subsequent release of the children.
Problem arose when the two brothers could not be traced after school on Friday. Several attempts to locate them yielded no results.
Their father, Abraham Osei, a lecturer at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology was given a Police extract for announcements to be made on local radio stations after lodging a complaint with the KNUST Police.
It was not until Saturday when the suspect called Mr. Osei and demanded a GHS2000 (N158,855) ransom before he would release the children.
“He (Mr. Osei) informed us that he got a call from someone who claimed to have the children.
“The caller asked him to deposit GHS2000 into an account so that he could release them.
“We also advised him as to what to do,” Ashanti regional commander, COP Ken Yeboah, said.
Kodah, who has been charged for kidnapping, first posed as an uncle to the children and claimed he was taking them to their mother. He later bought them new clothes and drinks.
According to Ken Yeboah, it took a collaboration between Police and a telecoms operator to rescue the children.
“The following day, we liaised with the telecoms company and because we have that collaboration with them, they were able to locate the kidnapper for us.
The company informed us that he was at Kumawu-Bodomase and we proceeded to Bodomase. We were informed that the kidnapper and the kids came there and slept in a hotel overnight and the next morning, they left the place,” he narrated.
With the support of mobile phone network operator which monitored the location of the suspect through his active mobile phone, Police managed to arrest him in a hotel at Asante Akyem Agogo where he had served the children some drinks.
“We contacted the operator again and they were able to tell us they’ve moved to Agogo and with the description that we had, we visited some hotels and then we were able to locate the kidnapper and the two kids. So we were able to rescue the victims.
Kodah, who graduated in Building Technology from the Kumasi Polytechnic (now Kumasi Technical University) in 2009, told Police he had wanted to use the money he intended to raised from the kidnap to fund his education at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology.
“The motive behind the kidnapping of the kids is that he wanted money.
“According to him, he got admission to the university last year but unfortunately, because of financial difficulties, he couldn’t go and so he needed money to start the process again,” COP Ken Yeboah said.
The children, who have since been reunited with their parents, are expected to undergo medical screening.
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