From Stanley Uzoaru, Owerri
The Federal Operations Unit (FOU), Zone C of the Nigeria Customs Service, said on Wednesday that it has intercepted 5,200 live ammunition and cartridges from smugglers in the South-East and South-South regions.
Comptroller Yusuf Lawal disclosed this while briefing newsmen on the achievements of the unit from January to March.
Besides the seizure of arms, Lawal also listed other items intercepted to include :2,976 bags of 50kg each of foreign parboiled rice, 1,024 cartons of Colcaps medicament without NAFDAC certification, 290 cartons of foreign Eva soap, 204 cartons of foreign tomato paste, 130 jumbo bales of used clothing.
Others are: 6 exotic vehicles; one Toyota Land Cruiser bullet proof 2019 model without End User Certificate from NSA, one Toyota Hilux 2020 model, one Toyota Corolla 2018 model among others.
He summed the total Duty Paid Value (DPV) for the three months seizures from the unit as N1,280,885,011.
The Comptroller said this does not include intervention recovered at the sum of N7,557,731 from demand notices raised.
According to Lawal, the feat would not have been possible without the logistics support from the Comptroller-General of Customs, Col Hameed Ibrahim Ali (retd) and the entire management of the NCS.
Warning smugglers, Lawal said: ‘As we hope to improve in the second quarter, I also advise smugglers to desist from the dastardly act.
‘Smugglers can take advantage of social intervention programmes of the federal government, especially in the area of agriculture and improve their lives because the long arm of the law will not spare them when they are eventually caught.’