Ashanti police arrests armed robbers and serial rapist in Kumasi

Kumasi, Jan 27, GNA - The Ashanti Regional Police Command has arrested eight suspected armed robbers, mobile phone snatchers and a serial rapist in separate operations in some suburbs in the Kumasi metropolis.

The serial rapist, Moses Baffoe, 33, is alleged to have raped eight women, including a pregnant woman on different occasions at the Pankronu Estate where he resides in the last two years. The pregnant woman is said to have lost the baby after delivery while the husband had also divorced her.

Briefing journalists in Kumasi on Friday, Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Frank Adu-Poku, Ashanti Regional Police Commander, said since the arrest of Baffoe, five women aged between 18 and 32 had appeared before the police and give vivid accounts of the trauma they went through in the hands of the suspect.

He said on one occasion, the suspect left behind his shoes, which the victim brought to the police to confirm the case. Baffoe has admitted before the police that the shoes belonged to him. ACP Adu-Poku said Baffoe had also been cited as an armed robber who robbed some people at Amanfo near Asante-Bekwai.

On the armed robbers, he said they were arrested separately at Aboabo Number One, Amakom and Asafo on different occasions this week. They are Mohammed Faisal, a 23-year-old fashion designer, Moses Adongo, Alhassan Kabiri, 27-year-old labourer, Kwasi Thomas, 22, a shoemaker, Yaw Marfo, 19, apprentice welder, Kwadwo Ketewa, a butcher and Kwaku Kwarteng, 21, unemployed.

ACP Adu-Poku said the suspects robbed their victims at gunpoint in taxicabs at dawn and thereafter pushed them out of the vehicle and bolted with their booties.

He said some of the robbers were arrested at the vicinities of the crime by people who heard the shout of help from the victims while the others were also arrested by the police in their hideouts. He said the police retrieved a number of offensive items when the police searched their rooms and ghettos.

Among the items were pistols, talisman, different types of traveling bags containing personal effects suspected to have been stolen from people, car tapes, television sets, sound systems, cutlasses, axe, police bellet, military caps, scissors, Bibles, student ID cards, a sharp-pointed sword-like rod, leaves suspected to be Indian hemp and mobile phones.

ACP Adu-Poku said with the support of the public, the police was making headway in its efforts to rid the city of criminals and appealed to the public to continue to assist the police to clamp down on criminals.