Machete-wielding robbery gang in Manchester targeted victims through Facebook Marketplace
A TV show has exposed how two teen robbers in Manchester lured unsuspecting victims into terrifying attacks after they'd agreed to buy or sell iPhones on Facebook Marketplace.
Nana Vandevelde and Zane Arshad set up fake Facebook profiles and posed as legitimate buyers enticing their victims before arranging to meet them in areas without CCTV coverage.
One victim who fell into their trap was eight months pregnant and she witnessed her husband being threatened at knifepoint, before the couple were chased down the street by a machete wielding robber.
Another victim feared he was going to be killed after he had a knife held to his throat.
Five robberies and one attempted robbery targeting victims on Facebook Marketplace were carried out in Gorton and Longsight September and October 2020.
The surprising way the pair were finally entrapped by police has been revealed in the BBC One series Frontline Fightback that is being shown this week after initially airing last year.
Episode eight of the second series shown on Wednesday November 1 has detailed how Greater Manchester Police managed to close in on the duo.
After each robbery the fake Facebook profiles set up by the robberies would be deleted leaving police with only grainy CCTV footage of the suspects heading to the meeting points and fleeing the scene.
In one clip detective constable Anthony Calvert of GMP's Operation Valiant team, tells the camera: “They [the robbers] represented a continuing danger to the public of Greater Manchester. It was clear they weren’t going to stop unless we stopped them.”
A breakthrough came when a phone used by the robbers to arrange the meetings was traced back to an address and linked to Vandevelde and Arshad.
Both men were found to be wearing electronic curfew tags.
Detective constable Calvert's team were able to use the data captured from the tags to build up damning evidence against the robbers and place them at the scene of the crimes.
Police checked the data captured using the tags and discovered neither of the men were at home at the time of the offences.
Their tags were also found to be pinging at locations minutes from where the attacks were carried out and both men were spotted on CCTV in the same areas that the signal from the tags was being picked up.
Officers stormed the men’s addresses and seized a machete from one of the offender’s homes and clothing matching that worn in the CCTV footage.
In February last year, ringleader Vandevelde, 19, confessed he plotted the robberies to pay off a drugs debt at Manchester Crown Court.
The 19-year-old of Penroyson Close, Gorton pleaded guilty to five counts of robbery, and one count of attempted robbery and was jailed for five-and-a-half years
Arshad, of Slade Grove, Longsight was meanwhile jailed for four years and six months after pleading guilty to two counts of robbery.
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