Customs Net N1.63bn from Smugglers, Duty Evaders

• Customs Net N1.63bn from Smugglers, Duty Evaders

The Nigeria Customs Service, Federal Operations Unit Zone A’ Ikeja has announced that between March 19 and April 9, it intercepted smuggled goods worth N1.4bn.

While disclosing this to journalists in Lagos on Wednesday, the Customs Area Controller, NCS FOU, Mohammed Garuba, said that the command recovered N166m from duty payments and demand notices on general goods from seaports, airports and border stations that came through wrong classification, transfer of value and reduction in duty payment.

The cumulative revenue from seizures and duty payments within the three weeks under review, according to Garuba, was N1.63bn.

He listed the seized items as 64 exotic vehicles, 6003 bags of foreign parboiled rice, 963 cartons of frozen poultry products, 431 jerry cans of vegetable oil, bales of used clothing, used tyres, sugar and others.

He added that 570 parcels and 98 sacks of Indian Hemp weighing 1,550kg were found among the items seized along Olorunda axis of Ogun State, making it the highest seizure of hard drugs in the history of the command.

“You all know what would have happened if the drugs got to the wrong hands undetected,” he said, adding that the drugs had been handed over to the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency for further investigation.

In addition, Garuba said that there was a mob attack on operatives of the command who tried to evacuate 2,671 bags of rice from Illogbo, Abeokuta, warning that the attacks would not prevent the agents in performing their lawful duties.