The Nigeria Customs Service, Federal Operations Unit, Zone ‘A’ Ikeja, Lagos intercepted various contraband with a duty paid value (DPV) N8,214,486,072.75 from January-June this year.
Also, during the half-year, the unit recovered N405,217,909.00 from duty payments and demand notices on vehicles and general goods that tried cut corners from seaports, airport and border stations through wrong classification, transfer of value, and shortchange in duty payment.
A statement issued by Public Relations Officer, Jerry Attah, on the operations of the zone in the six-month period under review indicated that 107 suspects were arrested in connection with 596 different seizures comprising 34,652 foreign parboiled rice and 167 units of exotic vehicles.
Other arrests were in connection with illegally imported 8,987 cartons frozen poultry products, 4,586 jerry cans of vegetable oil, 3,463 cartons of different pharmaceutical/medicaments, 370 parcels/98 sacks of Indian hemp weighing 1,350kg, and various general merchandise.
He also listed the interception of 460 sacks of pangolin scales weighing 12, 264 kg and 218 elephant tusks, making it the highest seizure of such endangered species in the history of Federal Operations Unit Zone A, amongst the items recovered by the zone.
Attah stated that the Minister of State for Environment; Mallam Ibrahim Usman accompanied by the United Nations charter on CITES delegates led by Mr Juan Carlos who is the Chief Legal Affairs, CITES Headquarters in Geneva, visited the zone to inspect the seized items and make necessary recommendation to its headquarters.
While quoting the minister as commending the zone for its efforts to combat smuggling, he stated that the UN delegates also promised their support to provide necessary trainings towards combating illicit trade on endangered species, so that such harmless animals don’t go into extinction.
Commenting on the Zone’s operations during the period, Comptroller Mohammed Uba said: “In order to ensure full implementation of the Government policy banning the importation of rice through land borders, we re-strategized our operational modalities and beam our searchlight at the Creek, Water side, and at various locations in southwest zone and hence the reason for the massive rice seizure within the months under review.
“We will continue to make sure smugglers within our areas of jurisdiction count their losses until they repent from sabotaging our economy”, he added.
Mohammed reiterated that even though smuggling was a global phenomenon that cannot be eradicated entirely, there was the need for inter-agency collaboration so that it could be reduced to its barest minimum in the country.
He also commended other agencies providing operational support to the Service, especially the Nigeria Army, Police, DSS among others and expressed optimism that the relationship with the other agencies would be sustained for improved performance of the Zone in the second half of the year.
