December 19, 2017

The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) said it seized 3, 870 with a duty paid value (DPV) of N11.2 billion from Jan. to Nov. 2017.

The Public Relations Officer of NCS, Mr Joseph Attah, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Tuesday in Abuja that this was against the 5,602 goods worth N10.2 billion seized within the same period in 2016.

Attah said that the volume of seizures made in 2017 increased over that of the year before because of the massive seizure of expensive vehicles.

He said that the successes recorded in 2017 were the results of the steps taken in 2016 taken by the Comptroller-General of NCS, retired Col. Hameed Ali, towards reforming the service

“Between Jan. and Nov. 2016 – this is general seizure – a total 5, 602 assorted seizures were made.

“Within that period 335 persons were arrested in connection with the seizures; of course some of them were granted bail; some of them had their cases pending, some had their cases at advance stages.

“In the same period of Jan. to Nov. 2017, we recorded 3,870 seizures with 186 persons arrested in connection with these seizures.’’

He said that high profile seizures were made in 2017, some of which included weapons, prohibited items, and exotic vehicles such as bullet-proof cars.

“This year we recorded more of high profile seizures beyond the 2,671 pump action riffles that cannot be valued; of course you know these are highly prohibited items that cannot be sold or auctioned; so automatically their value is not here.

“We had exotic cars – bullet-proof cars, talking about vehicles that their values are more than N300 million.

“The 5,602 seizures of 2016 between January and November amounted to N252, 408, 422 while that of 2017 – talking about 3,870 seizures, amounted to N11,237, 574,346.63.’

The spokesman of the service said that customs had reasons to believe that some financially strong smugglers had taken advantage of the country’s porous land borders and government policies to smuggle in items such as bullet-proof cars

“Recently, anti-smuggling operatives of the Federal Operation Unit Zone A, stormed a place in Lagos – a well fenced place and evacuated more than 50 exotic cars.

“So our anti-smuggling operation in 2017 was highly intelligence-driven and that led to the seizure of high profile and highly valuable items,’’ he said.