Customs Seizes Drugs, Vehicles Worth 1.7billion.

Federal Operations Unit (FOU), Zone A, Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), has made seizures of drugs, vehicles, donkey hide and other general goods with duty paid value worth over N1.7 billion in Lagos.

Controller of Customs in  the unit, Aliyu Mohammed , at a press briefing  yesterday  in Lagos, said  the unit has resolved to keep the anti-smuggling tempo high. He said the unit lost an officer last week while he was on duty.

Giving a breakdown of the seizures, Mohammed said a 2019 bullet-proof Toyota Land Cruiser with duty paid value (DPV) of N189m and 15 other high-profile vehicles with a total DPV of N469,702,179 were seized from smugglers in one month.

He said: “Also seized were 1,157 cartons of banned codeine syrup worth N405 million; 347 cartons of codeine worth N173,500,000; 348 cartons of diclofenac tablets worth N27.8 million; 1,056 cartons of chest and lungs tablets worth N105,600,000; 49 cartons of paracetamol injections worth N39,200,000 and 220kg of substance suspected to be cannabis.

“Donkey hide in 820 sacks valued at N77.9 million, new and used textile materials, body lotion, shoes, spaghetti, machetes and used tyres.”

According to him , while some of the seized drugs were outright prohibitions, others being smuggled into the country were not registered by the National Agency for Food Drug Administration and Control, which makes them unfit for consumption.

Mohammed who showed how smugglers pack rice in cement trucks thereby making some of the smuggled rice poisonous added that his men have made seizures of over 25,000 bags.”