Steve Agbota
The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), has suspended the licenses of about 300 clearing agents at the Apapa port over fraud and cyber crimes.
The Service uncovered and red flagged the popular ‘Nnewi Building’ close to the Lagos Port Complex in Apapa as a den for smuggling syndicates, specialising in clearing document falsification, hacking of passwords issued to Licensed Customs Agents.
The associations affected by the Customs onslaught included the Association of Nigeria Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA) with its National President, Tony Iju Nwabunike, who was suspended for allegedly being hacked and used to smuggle vehicles out of the port.
Addressing Freight Forwarders in Lagos, the Zonal Coordinator of Zone A of the Nigeria Customs Service, Assistant Comptroller General (ACG) Kaycee Ekekezie, warned that clearing agents need be careful of whom they allow to be in control of their password, saying that some of the agent’s staff also compromise with the hackers
However, she exhorted the agents to always change their password codes immediately they are given by the customs, adding that 70 per cent of the cases of password hacking were successfully carried out on default passwords.
She added: “Those fraudsters hacking your password are there at Nnewi Building, you better be careful. Another thing is that you might be shocked that it is your boys that are doing this thing. It is true that we have minimised it to a certain extent, but going to the public DTI is what has affected most of you”
“You will see somebody who has not even utilised his as Direct Traders Input (DTI) for once, it is the system that generates the code of your password. Once the password is given, you need to go back and change it, the same way you change the password of your ATM, when you go to a bank and collect an ATM, when you step out, you have to change it, if not, it would remain a default.