The Nigerian Customs Service, Federal Operations Unit, Zone “C”, Owerri, Imo State has seized a total of 169 items with a Duty Paid Value of N1,379,772,517 and a total of N394,815,038 as an underpayment recovered between January and June, 2016.
The Customs in the zone also said that it arrested 42 suspects in connection with the seizures while 25 cases are currently in court.
This is in contrast with a total of N39, 6444,813 under payment recovered and a DPV of N1, 013,833,362 in 2015.
In a statement signed by the Zone “C” Public Relations Officer, Ifeoma Onuigbo, the Customs Area Controller, Mr. Mammudu Haruna, stated that the banned items were confiscated by the vigilant officers and men of the unit on the Benin, Calabar, Owerri, Enugu and Aba/Eleme axis within the zone.
According to Haruna, some of the items packaged and concealed in such a manner to deceive security agents on duty are 90 vehicles; 2,758 bags of 50kg rice; 4,160 pieces of used tyres; 1,337 cartons/set of furniture and 625 cartons of fake drugs (medicaments).
Others are 61 containers of log of wood; 2,600 pieces of imported school bags; 97 pieces of 14 stroke engine generator and used fridges; 3,550 cartons of foreign frozen poultry products; 992 bales of second-hand clothes; 897 cartons of foreign detergents and creams as well as 167 pairs of foot wears.
Haruna, while professing the preparedness of the NCS to tackle the scourge of smuggling unauthorised goods into the country, expressed delight at the seizures recorded during the first six months of the year 2016 as against the ones made last year.
He, however, re-emphasised the dangers and implications inherent in the smuggling of illegal and unauthorised goods into the country.
Haruna noted that while the ugly practice had continued to deal a devastating blow on the nation’s economy, many families had been ruined as a result of the dastardly unpatriotic practice.
He, therefore, appealed to Nigerians, who are still trapped in the illicit act of smuggling to retrace their steps in their own interest, warning that the Nigerian Customs Service was better equipped, trained, motivated and reinvigorated to neutralise the antics of smugglers and dislodge them.
Haruna also appealed to member of the public with useful information about smugglers, their agents and collaborators, to always make them available to security agencies for necessary actions.
He pledged that such classified information would not be divulged to any individual, group or association.
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