The Anti-Vandal unit of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) in Sokoto has arrested two suspected suppliers of petrol to bandits.

The suspects were arrested around 2:30am on Friday at Anasiyya And Sons Filling Station, More area of Sokoto North local government area.

Assistant Commandant in charge of the unit, Aminu Maijiegi, who led the operation told Daily Trust that his unit was tipped off on the clandestine activity of the filling station.

“We received an intelligence that the filling station was selling petrol in jerry cans in the middle of the night in violation of the executive order banning selling of petrol in Jerry cans,” the said

“They usually switch off all the light in the filling station so that nobody will suspect any bad thing happening there.

“After gathering our intelligence, I led my team to the site. We took cover for an hour before raiding the place.

“They had already filled over 100 jerry cans with petrol at the time of our raid which were all recovered, including several empty jerry cans, and the vehicle that was waiting to transport the product to bandits in the eastern part of the state.

“We were also able to arrest two suspects, Jabir Abubakar, 23 of Bazza area, Isiya Abubakar, 38 of Kofar Marke area all in Sokoto North while Malam Mustapha of Konnawa area in Dange Shuni local government is still at large,” he said.

According to him, the suspects confessed to be taking the product to Illela, which is one of the areas under siege from bandits.