Gunfight with smugglers; rifle, consignment seized
The Nigerian Customs service (NCS) says its operatives engaged smugglers in a gunfight along the Idiroko axis, an area bordering Nigeria and Seme.
Hussein Ejibunu, the acting Comptroller of the Unit, Deputy Comptroller of Customs, in a monthly press briefing, said that operatives collected the “pump action rifle from one of the smugglers after a heavy gun duel.”
He said the smuggler abandoned his rifle and ran into the bush.
“The smugglers are familiar with the terrain but the most important thing is that the rice, rifle, and the means of conveyance were seized. “The documents of the vehicles are fake, making them difficult to trace. “However, a frantic effort is being made to arrest the fleeing smugglers,” the customs boss stated.
NCS says its operatives from the ‘Federal Operations Unit “Zone A” intercepted the smugglers, leading to the gun duel.
Items seized from the smugglers include “One (1) unit of pump action riffle, two (2) units of locally made guns and thirty-five (35) live cartridges”
The customs boss further said that operatives discovered and evacuated “one thousand, nine hundred and fifty-five bales of used clothing from an abandoned building around the Lagos International Trade Fair complex in Lagos.
“Prominent among the September seizures was a massive discovery of bales of 1,955 bales of used clothing in an abandoned building around the Lagos International Trade Fair Complex. We made the discovery and evacuation using combined strategies of intelligence, tactics and enforcement.
“Other seizures recorded within the same period are 7,328 x 50kg bags of foreign parboiled rice, 121,550 litres of premium motor spirit, 68 cartons of frozen poultry, 37 crates of eggs used to conceal rice,150 parcels of Indian Hemp, 10 pieces of military camouflage bags, 6 units of used cars (Tokunbo).
“In our efforts to prevent losses to government revenue, we also recovered the sum of One Hundred and Seven Million, Eight Hundred and Sixteen Thousand, Six Hundred Twenty-two Naira, Seventy-five Kobo (N107,816,622.75) for the period under review.”
