Woman, 52, Two Others Arrested For Shoplifting

Three persons, including a 52-year-old woman, have been arrested by the La Police in Accra for shop-lifting. They are Agnes Quaye, 52, Richard Annan, 33, a taxi driver, and Richard Asare, 32, a mason. It is alleged that they visited grocery and secondhand clothing shops where one of them posed as a buyer, while Agnes pilfered the items, after which they bolted in a taxi. They were arrested last Wednesday after stealing from a shop at Tse-Addo, behind the Trade Fair Centre, while escaping in a taxi driven by Annan. Stealing in taxi The La Police Crime Officer, Ms Cecilia Arko, said the suspects were arrested at 7p.m. after they had stolen a bag containing the previous day�s sales of a shop. She said they had used the same modus operandi to steal from a number of shops in the Eastern, Central and Greater Accra regions. Ms Arko said a number of victims had made reports to the police that various items and sums of money had been stolen from them by the suspects. According to her, while Annan waited in a taxi parked at a safe distance, Agnes and Asare went into the shops to steal. Watchdog committee During interrogation, Ms Arko said the police found out that the suspects had been stealing for the past three months �That is what they have been doing for a living,� she added. Some of the stolen items, according to the police, were bales of secondhand clothing, children�s footwear, mobile phone credit cards and alcoholic drinks. The police said the suspects later sold the items at the Makola Market in Accra after which they shared the money. Some members of the Watch Dog Committee in the area, led by the Assembly Member for Tse-Addo and Mantiase, Mr Emmanuel Nartey Kwapong, arrested the three persons and handed them over to the police.