The Federal Operations Unit, Zone ‘A’ of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) has arraigned two suspected Chinese smugglers, Shu Xiang Quan and Wu Sheng He and a Nigerian Ugochukwu Frank before Justice Mohammed Hassan of the Federal High Court, Ikoyi Lagos State on a four-count charge of storing and exporting prohibited items.
The three suspects, who were arraigned on Thursday, have been remanded in prison as the case was adjourned to January 5th and January 23rd for trial.
Badejogbin David who led the legal team of the NCS prayed the court to expedite the trial to serve as deterrent to others.
Public Relations Officer of the Unit, Jerry Attah said a total of 22 suspects were arrested for smuggling in December 2016.
He said 126 different seizures were recorded comprising raw hide/skin, elephant tusks, foreign parboiled rice, frozen poultry products, smuggled vehicles, Indian hemp and various general merchandise.
Attah said the Customs unit intercepted various contraband items worth N893million in December 2016.
In same vein, the unit through interventions recovered N494million from duty payments and demand notices on vehicles and other general goods that tried to beat the system from the seaports, airport and border stations in the guise of false declaration, transfer of value, and short-change in duty payment.