By Steve Agbota
The Seme Command of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) on Thursday intercepted 319 sacks and 1,500 jerricans of petroleum products along Badagry and Seme border.
In a statement issued and made available to Daily Sun by the Command’s Public Relations Officer, SC Hussaini Abdullahi on behalf of the Customs Area Controller (CAC), Comptroller Bello Mohammed Jibo revealed that the duty paid value (DPV) of the seized products is over N19.785 million.
The CAC of the command said: “In continuation of our efforts to suppress the smuggling of the petroleum products within nooks and crannies of the Command, officers and men of the Seme Area Command on a routine patrol along the bushes within Seme and Badagry intercepted another large quantity of petroleum products packaged in sacks and Jerry cans.”
According to him, the arrest of the petroleum products were made in the early hours of today Thursday, September 22, 2022.
He said the seized petroleum products were estimated to be around 2500 Jerry cans of 30 litres each equivalent to 75,000 litres.
However, the Customs Area Controller, Comptroller Jibo warned the perpetrators of these illegal activities to stay off Seme Border routes or continue to count heavy losses as his men were determined to frustrate them out of the area.
Recall that, three weeks ago the Command made a similar arrest of over 119,000 litres of the same petroleum products worth a Duty Paid Value (DPV) of N28, 924 million, to be smuggled out of the country through waterways in Badagry.
The petroleum products, which worth about four tanker loads of 33,000 litres each were stockpiled close to a beach along Badagry waterways intended to be smuggled out of the country.
Based on a tip-offf intelligence, then men and officers of the Command stormed the location and the product was successfully evacuated to the Command premises in Seme Border.