The Nigeria Customs Service, Federal Operations Unit, Zone ‘A’ has impounded 11 smuggled exotic vehicles with a duty paid value of ₦125.4 million.
Disclosing this to journalists in Lagos on Wednesday, the Controller, NCS FOU, Zone ‘A’, Mohammed Uba, also stated that eight suspects had been arrested in connection with 128 seizures.
He said that there were 12 cases at the Supreme Court, Court of Appeal and Federal High Court, adding that three were criminal cases; nine were civil cases; and one suspect had been convicted and sentenced to seven years imprisonment.
Uba also showed journalists the seized vehicles which were a Lexus jeep, Toyota RAV 4, two units of Toyota Camry, five Mercedes-Benz cars and two Iveco trucks.
He added that the command equally seized 4,227 bags of foreign parboiled rice, frozen poultry, vegetable oil, Indian hemp, drugs, electric cables, scrap metal and unprocessed wood and hide.
He said owners of some of the items had tried to smuggle them out of the country even though they were under the export prohibition list.
The command, according to him, has also seized 17 models of different vehicle brands, adding that the vehicles were moved from car marts due to alleged discrepancies noticed in their documents.
“As I speak with you, they have not been able to provide relevant Customs papers on some but we have given them enough room to provide them. The vehicles have a duty paid value of ₦141.9 million,” he said.
Uba disclosed further that a total of 14 containers were seized for false declaration and breach of Customs law. The containers had a duty paid value of ₦104.7 million, he said.
According to him, between August 29 and October 3, the command recovered ₦39.4 million, making a cumulative recovery of ₦395.6 million in one month.