By Uzor Odigbo
The Federal Operations Unit, Zone A of the Nigeria Customs Service has resumed its onslaught on smugglers and duty evaders in the 2018 fiscal year.
The anti- smuggling Unit in January alone intercepted various contraband with a total Duty Paid Value of N1,618,177,661.50.
Briefing Newsmen, Comptroller Mohammed Uba, the helmsman of the Unit, said they have intensified their operational modalities to meet up with the current smuggling tactics deployed by smugglers.
According to Uba the unit collected the sum of N91.366 million recovered as under payment within the period making the cumulative of N1,709,544,098 billion.
Among the items seized are 31 exotic cars which include four Rolls Royce, one Porche Panamera, one Jaguar, a Bentley car, two Lexus Jeeps, two G Wagon, aToyota Land Cruiser, five Toyota Corolla, seven Mercedes Benz among others mostly 2017 models.
According to the Controller, the Duty Paid Value of the vehicles is worth N1,429,953,941.50. He said some of the cars were intercepted along Ijebu Ode road, while others were carted from private facilities as empowered by section 147of CEMA Cap 45 laws of the federation of Nigeria.
Other items seized within the period are; 8,400 bags of foreign parboiled rice with Duty Paid Value (DPV) of N1,429,953,941.50; 835 jerry cans of vegetable oil worth N4,063,500.
Ten bags of Indian Hemp, 2,208 pieces of used tyres, 159 bales of used clothing, imported used Compressors all with dpv of N23,608,200.
The Customs boss also showcased a 1×20 feet container nabbed for false declaration saying the container was carrying 537 cartons of Indian Whisky declared as Yeast.
While another 1×40 container was seized for carrying 60 pieces of used Chest Freezers and 570 bundles of Gas Hose as against Condenser for Steam Polysonic amounting to false declaration.
Uba, however, urged the owners of the vehicles to come forward with valid Customs Clearance Documents to claim them, failure which he said the cars would be liable to seizure and subsequently forfeited to the Federal Government in line with laws of the land.
He said: “Let me seize this opportunity to warn all would-be smugglers to desist from any act of illegal trade and invest their money in a legitimate business that will yield dividend on their investments.
” There is no amount of resistance from the smugglers and their mob accomplices that will deter us from performing our statutory responsibilities in all aspects, especially in suppression of smuggling within our areas of jurisdiction .”