The Apapa Area Command of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) has intercepted 576 kilograms of narcotics concealed with food items meant for export to South Africa.
Acting Zonal Cordinator in charge of Zone ‘A’, Assistant Comptroller General of Customs (ACG) Charles Edike who disclosed this while on a visit to the command yesterday said the drugs, which were neatly packed in 17 kegs, were discovered during physical examination of the container.
He said the discovery of the container was made possible through collaboration with operatives of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA).
“NDLEA gave customs the intelligence for 10 containers and immediately the officers arranged and the containers were brought down.
“So far, we have examined three containers out of the 10 containers and out of the three, one was found wanting.
“That one had concealment. There were all sorts of foodstuffs: beans, garri but amongst them 17 jerricans had some white substance hidden inside the jerricans and immediately with their expertise, they ascertained that they were actually hard drugs.
“We will continue with the examination because it is still inconclusive. When we finish with the remaining seven, we will know whether there are still drugs in there or not,” he said.
Edike, while expressing his appreciation to the NDLEA officials for their role in intercepting the containers promised that Customs will continue to collaborate with the agency and other security agencies in the port.
“We appreciate your intelligence which is very important and vital. We also appreciate your men coming to join hands with us and other government agencies to have made this seizure.
“We collaborate with all agencies in the port and that strong robust synergy resulted in what you are seeing today.
“This also expresses why the current Comptroller-General of Customs has been going round to all government agencies trying to synergise so that all of us can work together to make our country better and that effort is now paying off between Apapa Command and NDLEA,” he said.
The NDLEA Commander in charge of the Apapa special area command, Mrs Joyce Awogbuyi said a suspect had been arrested in connection with the seizure while investigation was ongoing to ascertain if there are other syndicates involved in the aborted export.
Copyright Ships & Ports Ltd. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit given to www.shipsandports.com.ng as the source.