Customs battles smugglers in Lagos, Ogun, intercepts cartons of poultry products

Operatives of the Nigeria Customs Service, Federal Operations Unit, Zone A, were on Monday engaged in a gun battle with smugglers. At the end of the clash, the Customs officials intercepted and destroyed poultry products worth N20,678,400.  Eko Trust gathered that the smugglers had attempted to bring into Nigeria many cartons of frozen poultry products, […]

Operatives of the Nigeria Customs Service, Federal Operations Unit, Zone A, were on Monday engaged in a gun battle with smugglers.

At the end of the clash, the Customs officials intercepted and destroyed poultry products worth N20,678,400.

 Eko Trust gathered that the smugglers had attempted to bring into Nigeria many cartons of frozen poultry products, but met stiff resistance from the Customs officers.

The Acting Comptroller of the unit, Usman Yahaya, who confirmed this, said seizures were actually made in two separate operations.

A statement by the Unit’s Public Relations Officer, Jerry Attah, said the seizures came in 2,154 cartons laden with seven vehicles of different capacities.

According to Attah, “These seizures, which we made within a week, were a strong message to smugglers and trans-border criminals. They should not be deceived into concluding that we are away from our duty posts.

“As usual, we are on duty and will continue to surprise smugglers with seizures and arrests any time they dare us.

“These seizures were contained in seven vehicles that were quickly abandoned by the drivers, who fled on sighting our officers. We had to improvise means of driving the vehicles to our premises because the smugglers ran away with the keys,” Yahaya said.

The highest bulk of the seizures was achieved by a patrol team led by Steven Abah, a Chief Superintendent of Customs, whose team brought in 1500 cartons in one fell swoop.