Customs impounds 25 vehicles smuggling goods through illegal routes

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Customs impounds 25 vehicles smuggling goods through illegal routes

The Nigeria Customs Service, NCS, Oyo/Osun Area Command on Friday said it impounded 25 vehicles smuggled into Nigeria with contraband goods through illegal routes.
The Comptroller of the command, Temitope Ogunkua, who made this disclosure in a statement said the seizures were made at different locations within the command’s area of coverage.

Ogunkua said owners of some of the vehicles chose the illegal routes to escape paying duty on them.

According to him, a total of 342 bags of rice were loaded in 23 vehicles, with duty paid value of about N2.9m. Two other trucks were also loaded with hundreds of bags of rice. He said part of the vehicles seized were bulletproof Toyota Land Cruiser Prado Jeep, Toyota Avalon, Toyota Venza and articulated vehicles used to load the smuggled goods.

The statement reads: Some of the strategic seizures made in the first half of the year also included 226 packages of cannabis sativa; 3,948 bags of rice with duty paid value of N32m; 65 fairly-used assorted vehicles with duty paid value of N72.3m; and 66 cartons of frozen imported poultry products with duty paid value of N548,262.

“The command will continue to look forward to unprecedented performance in the second half of the year.

“Diversification in intelligence gathering and utilisation, application of diplomacy in anti-smuggling activity especially in volatile border areas will enable the command to consistently build on both revenue and anti-smuggling feats.

“It is noteworthy to also report that around N156.2m was paid in duty on 948 vehicles during the first half of the year.”