Niger customs intercept smugglers; recover Million Naira worth of Goods

The Niger State Area Command of the Nigeria Customs Service has within one month confiscated several bags of foreign rice, second-hand clothes and vehicles, worth N164.2m.

The Area Comptroller, Yusuf Kassim, who supervises Niger, Kogi and Kwara states offices of the service, disclosed this to in Minna during the week.

According to him, the items included, 934 bags (50kg) of imported foreign rice with the duty value of N160, 066,700; 12 bales of second hand-clothes, valued at N432,000 and one used Volkswagen Golf worth N180,000.

Others were one used Toyota Camry, valued at N3,577,500, a fairly-used Toyota Avensis 1998 model, Tayota Rav4 2017 model and one Howo 18-tyre truck.

The Controller pointed out that the anti -smuggling unit of the command had introduced more comprehensive security measures that helped them to intercept and seize contraband from the smugglers.

“Our borders are intact; we have deployed officers to man the border posts in Mokwa-Jebba, Tunga Madugu, Kibira and Agbara Rofiya in the Borgu Local Government Area of the state.

“An order was also sent to officers in border posts in Chikanda, Yashikira, Kuso in the Boso Local Government Area of Kwara state.

“Honestly, we are battle-ready to end smuggling through our various strategies that will pave the way for the arrest and prosecution of smugglers in our command,” Kassim stated.

On Internally Generated Revenue, the area comptroller said the command had generated N791,240,411.77 in the period under review.

He added that the command had trained well-armed security personnel to identify smugglers’ routes and ensure their arrest and prosecution.

“Our command prohibits any kind of smuggling business. “We have stationed our well-trained personnel to stop the illegal business,” he said.