Highway patrol team arrests suspected armed robbers

Konongo (Ash), July 22, GNA- A highway patrol team on Tuesday arrested two persons suspected to be members of an armed robbery gang who attacked and robbed travellers at the outskirts of Konongo. One of the gang members, however, managed to escape. The names of the two arrested robbers were not immediately known.

Chief Superintendent of Police Mr Theodore Kwasi Gawe, the Konongo Divisional Police Commander, told the GNA at Konongo on Friday that the driver of a truck which was carrying yams from Abofour in the Offinso district of Ashanti to Accra, on reaching the outskirts of Konongo towards Yawkwei heard an unusual noise under the vehicle.

The Divisional Police Commander said when the driver stopped the vehicle to find out what was going on wrong, six people had emerged from the bush.

He said one of the robberies holding a gun asked the driver and persons with him to surrender all the money they had on them. Chief Superintendent Gawe said the robbers took 200,000 cedis from their victims and asked the driver to block the road with the truck, after which they succeeded in robbing passengers in a few vehicles.

The Divisional Police Commander said when the police at Konongo rushed to the robbery spot the robbers had fled into the bush but returned when the police left the scene. He said the highway patrol team upon receiving information from their colleagues, mounted a roadblock at Anyinam and arrested the two suspected robbers in a vehicle while a third robber escaped.