SAN FRANCISCO, October 30, (THEWILL) – The Nigerian Customs Service (NCS), has seized 52 containers laden with various contrabands, including expired rice and banned drugs, smuggled through the Tin Can Island port in Lagos.
According to Comptroller General of Customs, Hameed Ali (retd), 33 of the containers were loaded with foreign rice. He listed other seized items as one container of rice concealed with spare parts, 11 containers of unregistered pharmaceutical products, two containers of used tyres, one container of used clothing and four containers of refined vegetable oil in retail packs.
Ali put the value of the seizure at N2.713 billion adding that efforts are on to arrest the persons behind the smuggling going by the various addresses on the bags of rice and contacts on importation documents.
“One significant thing about this seizure is that all the rice has expired or about to expire. Also remarkable is the seizure of variants and unregistered performance enhancing drugs among the pharmaceutical.
“No doubt, those who imported these dangerous items do not wish us well. Imagine if they had succeeded in getting the expired rice in, re-bagged and changed the expiration date for Nigerians to consume.”
The Customs boss said he had directed a full investigation to bring all those connected with the importation to justice.
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