Nigeria Customs Service
It is unquestionably not enterprise as typical for the smugglers that adopted the creek as route for his or her nefarious actions, because the Federal Operations Unit (FOU), Zone “A” of the Nigeria Customs Services (NCS) beamed it searchlight to the creeks, waterside at numerous areas in Southwest area of the nation.
Indeed, the current operations by the Unit has revealed a number of antics of the smugglers, main to seizure of 15 trailers of rice amongst different gadgets that have been seized throughout completely different location between 16 May and 12 June this 12 months.
The Unit additionally intercepted contrabands, items and autos have a Duty Paid Value (DPV) of N1.3 billion whereas about N59.5 million was recovered from underpayments, making a cumulative of N1.4 billion.
The Controller FOU, Zone “A” Ikeja, Mohammed Uba, whereas parading the seizures earlier than the media, mentioned: “Some of our officers put their lives on the line making these seizures, most especially the 15 trailers load of rice knowing fully well it’s a big battle at the creek and bush parts. Their resilience and doggedness is highly commendable,”
He mentioned: “In order to guarantee full implementation of the federal government coverage banning the importation of rice via land borders and following headquarters directive on identical, we re-strategised our operational modalities and beam our searchlight on the creek, water aspect at numerous areas in Southwest zone, therefore the large rice seizure throughout the interval below evaluation.
“We will not stop to make sure smugglers within our areas of jurisdiction count their losses until smugglers repent from sabotaging our economy,” he acknowledged.
Uba listed different seized gadgets to embrace; 15 unique autos together with three Toyota C-HR (2018 Model); one Toyota Camry LE (2018); one Toyota Prado (2018); one Mercedes Benz (2017); amongst others.
Other spectacular seizures embrace; 9,049 baggage of international parboiled rice (15 trailers); 1,464 cartons of frozen poultry merchandise, 870 jerry cans of vegetable oil, 273 bales of used clothes, 592 items of used tyres amongst others.
Also, 4 containers with no: PCIU850134/9, PCIU8278544, FCIU983753 and TGHU6924330 have been seized for false declaration.
While two of the containers have been carrying eight,633 items of empty cylinders as towards plumbing supplies declared of their SGD, the opposite two carried 120 bales of recent denims as towards punching machine declared.
Uba mentioned 12 suspects have been already arrested in reference to the 112 seizures.