The Federal Operations Unit (FOU) of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) said it has intercepted a vehicle with a COVID-19 sticker being used to smuggle banned poultry products into the country.
The unit also said it seized various contrabands worth N12.7b between January and April 2020.
The Public Relations Officer of the unit, Jerry Attah, who disclosed this in a statement issued in Lagos on Tuesday, said the intercepted vehicle was disguised as carrying essential materials for COVID-19, but upon inspection it was found to contain cartons of frozen chicken smuggled from Benin Republic.
The statement quoted the Customs Area Controller of the unit, Usman Yahaya, as saying that the vehicle was intercepted along Ijebu Ode Expressway.
He said: “The vehicle was intercepted based on intelligence and the eagle eye of officers who were on routine patrol at the axis.
“We have arrested the vehicle and investigation has commenced to get to the root and unravel other atrocities that may have been committed using the essential duty tag.”
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Throwing light on the activities of the command in the last four months, the Area Controller, stated that the unit also paid N1.14 billion into the Treasury Single Account (TSA) of the Federal Government from Debit Note (DN) on intercepted containers from Lagos seaport, voluntary payment of Customs duty on vehicles, auction sales from premium motor spirit (PMS), among others .
He explained that 25 units of fairly used vehicles worth N108million, 5,644 cartons of frozen chicken worth N54.1million, 9,843 bags of 50kg rice worth N130.4 million and sacks of textile materials valued at N94million were seized in the month under review.
Others are N14million worth of used tyres, 3,764 kegs of smuggled vegetables oil worth N69.2 million, 8,365 litres of PMS and AGO also known as diesel valued at N35million.
Yahaya added: “We won’t relent in our anti-smuggling fight especially at this time the government is preaching diversification into the agric sector due to the fall in price of oil in the international market which has affected government revenue base.
“So, we will ensure that smuggling is reduced to the nearest minimum and not allow to fester as that could be injurious to our economy and wellbeing as a country.”
The FOU A is the anti-smuggling arm of the Nigeria Customs Service responsible for checking smuggling in the six states of the South-West.
