Kidnappers disguising as mentally sick persons are on the prowl in Ilorin, the Kwara State capital.

These characters are being used as agents by yet-to-be identified influential persons in the society. Their missions, according to sources, include the murder of their victims, severing from their bodies needed organs for money- making purposes and the sale of such parts to their sponsors.

The kidnappers would ordinarily appear as mentally derailed persons, who stay at strategic locations where they could easily catch their victims, mostly women and children.

They often wear tattered clothes with cleverly designed wigs patterned after those of mentally sick persons.

One of them was caught Sunday at Surulere area of Ilorin. Although appearing as mentally sick considering his looks, the calibre of the telephone set he was using and his conversation with it attracted the attention of passers-by.

The handset, a Black Berry model, was considered too costly for the use of such a person. They swooped on him and in the process snapped the set from him. A cursory look at the available data on the call log showed only five numbers without identities.

Besides, when stripped of the unkempt clothes, the mob was shocked seeing on him a very neat T-Shirt and a pair of Jeans trousers. When a search was conducted on him, pen-knives of various shapes and a bale of Naira notes were found on him.

A daring member of the mob, according to sources, "used the "mad" man's handset to dial one of the five numbers on the call log, feigning the owner. He told the receiver of the call, a male voice, of some of the products in stock, "human body parts."

The receiver, before realising the voice calling him, allegedly ordered for "fresh female breasts." The development made the mob to descend heavily on the suspected kidnapper before he was saved by two mobile police officers.

The policemen promptly took the man to an unknown destination but which many people believed could be a nearby police station.

Speaking on the development, Police Spokesman for the Kwara Command Olufemi Fabode DSP denied knowledge of the incident, but pledged prompt investigations into the matter.