FOU ZONE 'A' INTERCEPTS FOREIGN USED VEHICLES, RICE, OTHERS WORTH N872.6 MILLION

FOU ZONE 'A' INTERCEPTS FOREIGN USED VEHICLES, RICE,  OTHERS WORTH N872.6 MILLION 

Comptroller Hussein Kehinde Ejibunu, CAC, FOU ZONE 'A'

By: Bisi Akingbade 

The Nigeria Customs Service, through its Federal  Operations  Unit, FOU, Ikeja has seized 13 foreign-used vehicles and 5,459 x 50kg bags of foreign parboiled rice and other items in November 2023.

The Controller of the Unit, Comptroller Hussein Kehinde Ejibunu, disclosed this in Lagos on Tuesday, stating that 11 suspects were also arrested in connection with the seizures.

The Duty Paid Value, DPV of the items seized was  N872.6 million as the Unit generated  N71,254,984.71 through demand notices on underpaid consignments in the same month.

The other seizures included 18,100 litres of premium motor spirit, 376 bales of used clothes, 1,926 cartons of frozen poultry products, 337 pieces of used compressors, 3 X 40ft containers bearing 3,838 pieces of used tyres, 13 foreign-used vehicles and 396 cartons of frozen fish. 

Comptroller  Ejibunu said that “these seizures reflect our commitment to the discharge of our functions aimed at protecting the nation’s economy and preventing the importation of prohibited and harmful products from entering our domestic markets.

“Smugglers deploy a lot of ingenuity in concealing contrabands, and this enables them “to hide illicit goods from detection by concerned authorities. 

 

“It is important to note that smuggling is illegal and a crime that has negative social, economic and security implications. 

It is our resolve to continuously work hard to improve detection methods with the aid of intelligence.  

“The strategic deployment of officers with intelligence-driven anti-smuggling operations led to the arrest of a Toyota Highlander with an ingenious concealment of suspected bags of foreign parboiled rice at Iju-Ojuore, Ogun State