TRACKING>>The Nigeria Customs Service in Katsina state has arrested two persons with 42.9 million CFA in their possession, an equivalent to N26.5 million.
According to the Sector Coordinator, Comptroller Aliyu Mohammed in a press briefing said that the suspects were arrested by officers of the Sector 4 command of the National Border Drill operation while trying to illegally cross the Kamba border axis of Sokoto state.
“One was arrested trying to cross the border illegally; he doesn’t have a valid document and was in possession of 32 million CFA, while his second was in possession of 9 million CFA.
“If you have currency while going out of the country there is a regulation; you must have a valid document for going out; secondly, you must declare your currency to customs, not more than $10,000 or equivalent.
He added that “They are crossing without documents and with a large amount of money equivalent to N26.5 million.”
The Customs boss stated that another case is that of three smugglers who offered the sum of N1.5 million cash to the sector as a bribe to bail out their two vehicles loaded with banned second-hand clothes.
“The second issue is someone who tried to smuggle two busses loaded with banned used cloths; he came to meet us for negotiation instead of running away.
“He offered to give us N2.5 million but he brought N1.5 million so we collected the money, arrested him and seized the consignment.”
He said goods of various types with a Duty Paid Value (DPV) of over N473 million were also intercepted in Katsina state within two weeks across various illegal routes existing in the state.
Items seized include: 362 bales of textile materials, 377 Jumbo bales of used clothes, 270 cartons of foreign Eva soap, 880 bags of 50kg smuggled rice, three trailers of smuggled scrapped metals.
Others are 60 drums of petroleum product, 96 empty drums, 13 drums of diesel, 22 Jumbo sacks of 100Kg snuff and 178 Jerry cans of petroleum product.
Mohammed stressed that the current border closure drill has recorded tremendous success, stating that the crime rate and influx of drugs have reduced.
“The border closure drill has recorded tremendous success; the rate of crime and smuggling of drugs have gone down seriously.
“Sometimes when we work, we are saving residence because if we allow drugs into the state, Nigerian Indian hemp isn’t effective so they are smoking Indian hemp from Ghana because it doesn’t smell and it’s very powerful; if we allow that to enter Katsina, I don’t know what will happen,” he added.
