The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) has disclosed that it has teams intercepted a truck with registration number AGL 53 XF suspected to be carrying frozen poultry products along the busy Ijebu-Ode-Sagamu Expressway.
The team leader of the Headquarters Compliance Team Ogun State axis, Assistant Comptroller Shittu Abdulmaruf who disclosed this in a chat with newsmen stated that the interception was made possible following the curiosity of his operatives who insisted on conducting physical examination on the truck.
Abdulmaruf stated that upon examination, it was discovered that the truck had two thousand, four hundred and thirty-eight (2,438) cartons of smuggled frozen poultry products, concealed with twenty two (22) pallets of Maltina drinks even as he gave the value of the frozen poultry products alone as thirteen million, one hundred and sixty-five thousand, two hundred naira (N13, 165,200.00) only.
The team leader further disclosed that his team in less than twenty hours thereafter intercepted an eight (8) tyre truck laden with imported shoes and canvas along the toll gate end of Sagamu-Ijebu-Ode expressway.
The truck according to him had been deposited at the Customs House Ibadan where 100% examination would be conducted to ascertain the quantity and status of the consignment.
Speaking on the modalities adopted by his team in suppressing smuggling, the team leader reiterated the determination of his team to continually wreck havoc on smugglers adding that efforts were being made to strengthen and improve on their operational strategies in line with the change ideology of the Federal Government of Nigeria.
Abdulmaruf further assured that his team in collaboration with the other anti-smuggling units had the capacity and capability to degrade smugglers saying, “We are not unmindful of their desperation to smuggle, in terms of going the extra miles, using any available strategy. The good news is that we are always several steps ahead of them.
“The task of policing the entire area under our coverage is a responsibility that we cannot afford to abdicate. We are not oblivious of the expectation of the Nigeria Custom Service Management, in terms of optimal performance, hence our desire to make them proud.
“The Nigeria Custom Service has risen up to this challenge and will not rest on its oars until we suppress smuggling to barest minimum”.
The team leader solicited the support of Nigerians in this fight and promised that identity of informants would be jealously guided, so as not to endanger their lives.
He commended the Comptroller General of Customs, Col. Hammed Ibrahim Ali (Rtd.) and the NCS Management for their logistic support, which he said had given them the needed impetus to excel.
“We cannot afford to renege on this assignment, irrespective of circumstance”, he assured.
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