There have been frequent cases of innocent commuters, in Port Harcourt, Rivers State capital, losing their telephone handsets to thieves who pretend to be commuters like them, but only end up robbing them of their phones.
One of their victims, names withheld) boarded a taxi at the AirForce junction going to 1st Artillery and within few minutes, a fellow occupant of the taxi sitting with the victim in front of the cab started shouting and saying that his hand was jammed by the door.
The victim, in sympathy was trying to assist to open the door to free the hands of the man shouting and screaming.
According to the victim, the driver joined in the confusion that ensued, and in the course of rescuing the situation, the man in front of the car with the victim asked the driver to drop him. The driver stopped the vehicle and the victim who sitting by the door alighted to make way for the man, who was shouting, to drop. The driver immediately the victim dropped from the vehicle sped off. The victim’s phone was later discovered to have disappeared from the bag where it was.
Newsportal found out during a visit to the outlet of one of the telecommunications companies that the same trick had been used on many commuters to disposes them of their phones.
A staff of the company said that many of the customers that come to their office for telephone sim replacement complain that they lost their handsets through miscreants who deployed the trick to steal their phones.
