The Seme command of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) has said that it has uncovered new antics adopted by smugglers to smuggle imported vehicles into Nigeria with the aim of evading the watchful eyes of the service.
The Customs Area Controller of the command, Comptroller Mohammed Uba Garba who made this disclosure while conducting newsmen round the smuggled vehicles intercepted by the command in the last two months said that the smugglers were using various ways and means to counteract whatever plans the service had put in place to checkmate their activities without knowing that the officials of the service were always planning ahead of them to ensure that they don’t reach the finishing line.
Mohammed revealed that the smugglers now engrave fake chasis number against the original one on the vehicle and go about to get other documents to agree with the new chasis number that they have invented, all with a view to make sure that they get away with adding that it was for that reason the vehicles were intercepted and were being detained.
He said,” It is important for you to bring it to public notice and other security agencies as well. When you see chasis number on vehicles, you look very carefully, they have now devised a new means, they will suppress the original one and you will see the artificial one on the surface and it will agree with their new invented document but unknown to them, we have procedures in customs, there are other checks and balances which we don’t want to bring to public notice because they will get to know and try to beat the system with it.
“But because customs has gone technologically higher, when we compare this chasis number with the documents that they presented, we have seen that they are in conflict with the original chasis number. So, this is one of the devises they have invented and we have defeated them in short”.
Asked how the service discovered the new gimmick by the smugglers, the CAC retorted,” We always devise means and ways and we also exchange ideas, we look at various cases and means that they devise to beat our eyes and accumulation of such research and fact finding, we also try to project, what are they likely to do next. So, it is along that line that we are able to make such arrests”.
He further said that other antics by the smugglers to beat the system include the imposing of vehicles that were cleared earlier which when subjected to checks and balances by the command prove them wrong hence they always got arrested.
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