Police arrest chief, Islamic cleric, 8 other ritualists, recover human parts

The officers of the Lagos State Police Command have arrested a gang of 10 suspected ritualists who specialise in killing people and selling their body parts to ritualists.

The command’s spokesperson, SP Benjamin Hundeyin, disclosed this while parading the suspects before journalists in Lagos on Friday, May 3, 2024.

Hundeyin said the leader of the gang, a 33-year-old man, Ademola Akinlosotu, used to exhume corpses from cemeteries and sell the parts to money ritualists.

He listed others arrested to include a community chief, an Ifa priest, an Osun priestess, an Islamic cleric, and a traditional medicine practitioner.

The police spokesman said the suspects were arrested through intelligence reports from the residents of the state.

Hundeyin added that a report obtained by the police also revealed that the suspects usually lure people to their hideout, saying the people would never come out alive.

Suspect: How I exhumed bodies from cemeteries, kill for money ritual

He said exhibits of different human parts were recovered from the suspects.

He noted that the police were on the trail of other suspects, adding that the arrested suspects would be charged to court as soon as investigations were completed.

Speaking to newsmen after the parade, the leader of the gang, Akinlosotu, said he got the human parts from dead bodies buried at the cemeteries, before graduating to actual killings – a job he had been doing for years.

Akinlosotu said he moved to people’s killing because his clients requested fresh parts rather than dead body parts.

He said while he and some members of the gang would do the killings, he would supply the parts.

According to him, a fresh human head is sold at N45,000 or N50,000 while a dried human head sells between N30,000 and N35,000; a heart for N70,000 and hands for N50,000.

The suspect added that he only killed two persons, including a friend he met on social media before he was arrested.

The Star