Lawrence Ajodo, a fake police officer arrested alongside 13 others for laying siege to the Abuja residence of the Supreme Court Justice, Mary Odili, has reportedly carried out the acts on other occasions with the backing of highly placed officials, Sunday PUNCH has learnt.

It was gathered that Ajodo had been involved in four similar cases of assets recovery raids on homes of some prominent citizens, including the residence of former military President, Gen Abdulsalami Abubakar (retd.).

A complement of security operatives led by Ajodo, , a fake Chief Superintendent of Police, had stormed Justice Odili’s Maitama residence on October 29, on the strength of a purported tip by a whistleblower, Aliyu Umar, who claimed to have observed suspicious activities at the Supreme Court Justice’s residence.

Ajodo, who claimed to be a consultant to the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, SAN, was paraded alongside other suspects by the police on Thursday in Abuja.

Police sources said the incident had led to the arrest and detention of about nine policemen, including a Superintendent of Police, all drawn from Zone 7, Abuja.

Ajodo’s alleged accomplices include, Michael Diete-Spiff; two lawyers, Alex Onyekuru and Ernest Igwe; one Bayero Lawal; Aliyu Umar; Maimuna Maishanu; Ayodele Akindipe; Yusuf Adamu and Bashir Musa.

Others are ASP Mohammed Yahaya; a journalist, Stanley Nkwazema; Shehu Jibo; Abdullahi Adamu and a Lance Coporal simply identified as Mike.

The force spokesman, Frank Mba, had described them as “members of a well-organised criminal gang with a web-like involvement of individuals drawing from their different competences, professional background and social contacts in perfecting the criminal plot.”

Our correspondent gathered that the last botched raid carried out by Ajodo’s team on a purported intelligence that huge sums of money were warehoused in a building embarrassed the police leadership.

It was learnt that Ajodo used to recruit operatives from the Intelligence Response Team, Force Intelligence Bureau, and other units for assets recovery operations sanctioned by unnamed senior officials.

A senior officer stated, “Initially, he used to recruit policemen from IRT, FIB  for his raid on people’s homes but policemen stopped going with him on his assets recovery operations after the last failed operation he led at the beginning of the coronavirus lockdown in 2020.  The operations were targeted at addresses not individuals.

“He later gained some clout at the Ministry of Justice and continued his raids on homes but policemen stopped going with him after the 2020 incident which led to the detention of some officers from Zone 7.”

Items recovered from Ajodo included three vehicles, a laptop, two fake ID cards, a printer and a search warrant.