The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Federal Operations Unit (FOU) Zone ‘C’, Owerri has seized 169 items with a Duty Paid Value (DPV) of N1.379 billion in the last six months.

Also, a total of N394 million as an underpayment was recovered within the period.

The Customs Area Controller in charge of the Unit, Comptroller Haruna Mammudu, said 42 suspects were arrested in connection with the seizures made, while 25 cases are now pending in court for possible prosecution of the culprits within the period under review.

This is in contrast with a total of N39 million underpayment recovered and a DPV of N1.013 billion which the unit recorded in the year 2015.

Mammudu said 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 the comptroller, the items which were packaged and concealed in such a manner as to deceive security agents on duty include 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 were 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 clothings; 897 cartons of foreign detergents and creams as well as 167 pairs of foot wear.

Mammudu while professing the preparedness of the NCS to tackle the scourge of smuggling of unauthorized goods into the country expressed delight at the seizures profile recorded during the first six months of the year 2016 as against that made last year.

He however re-emphasized the dangers and implications inherent in the smuggling of illegal and unauthorized goods into the country.
Noting that while the ugly practice had continued to deal a devastating blow on the nation’s economy, he said many families had been ruined as a result of the dastardly unpatriotic practice.

The comptroller therefore appealed to Nigerians who are still trapped in the illicit cancer of smuggling to retract their ugly steps in their own interest.

He warned that the Nigeria Customs Service is now better equipped, trained, motivated and reinvigorated to neutralize the antics of smugglers and to dislodge them wherever they hibernate to perpetrate their evil acts.