By Christopher Oji
Federal Operations Unit (FOU), Zone A, Lagos of the Nigeria Customs Service has sealed up six warehouses in Lagos used by suspected smugglers to stockpile various contrabands.
One of the warehouses which was sealed up contained over 20,000 bags of rice that were smuggled into the country.
The Contoller in charge of the unit, Haruna Mamudu, disclosed that the unit collected N286.623 million as revenue from seized vehicles smuggled into the country.
The vehicles were said to have been smuggled through the seaport, airport and land borders in Lagos and Ogun states.
Mamudu, who made this revelation while addressing newsmen in Lagos yesterday, said he got an intelligence report about the movement of bags of rice into a particular warehouse around Ojo area of Lagos.
He said based on the report, he ordered some undercover detectives to investigate the allegation.
Mamudu said the officers swung into action and discovered that criminals had stockpiled six warehouses with various contraband.
“Five of the sealed warehouses had items like used cloths, bags, vegetable oil while one had over 20,000 bags of rice stocked in it. These achievements were made between October and November 2016,” he said.
On the seized vehicles, the comptroller explained that the owners had tried to beat the system from the seaport, airport and land borders stations in Lagos and Ogun states.
He noted that the vehicles were brought into the country under the guise of false declaration, Transfer of values and shortchange in duty payable that are meant for the Federal Government.
“The cumulative amount realized from vehicles and other general goods that tried to beat the eagle eyes of detectives from the zone is put at N286,623,853.00 million,” he said.
“The zone also intercepted various contraband with duty paid value of N325,0530,85.00 million. This brings to a total of N611,676,938.00 million from duty payments and demand notices on vehicles and other goods in the month of October and November 2016” he added.