Smugglers employ bandits to smuggle contraband products into the country -NCS

…Confiscates 61 SUVs with fake govt plate numbers

By Abiodun OBA

The Nigerian Customs Service (NCS) has raised the alarm that some smugglers had come up with new methods to avoid arrest by getting the services of bandits in the northern region to smuggle contraband products into the country.

The NCS Federal Operations Unit (FOU) Zone B Comptroller, Dalha Wada, made the revelation in Kaduna.

He noted that within a period of three months, officers of the unit had made a total of 242 seizures of 21 different items including 61 smuggled Sports Utility Vehicles with fake government plate numbers.

According to Wada, the smuggled vehicles were confiscated from smugglers at different locations in the North-Central and North-West zones.

Other items confiscated include textile products and drugs with a total Duty Paid Value worth N2.8 billion.

Among the items are over 2,000 bags of foreign parboiled rice, cartons of vegetable oil, bales of foreign second-hand clothes and shoes as well as drugs.

The Comptroller handed over the seizures to the representative of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) for further prosecution.