Officers and men of the Adamawa/Taraba Command of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), on Friday raided Mubi town market for foreign rice and other contraband.
The raid, led by Comptroller Kamardeen Olumoh, resulted in the seizure of many bags of foreign rice and the arrest of three suspects.
The Customs personnel, with reinforcement from the police, stormed the commercial border town main market around 11 a.m and raided many shops and stores.
Olumoh said, “The menace of smuggling around this axis is alarming for quite some time, the Comptroller-General of Customs ordered that operations be carried out; that Mubi market must be mopped up of all smuggled items, especially foreign rice.
“Today, we are in the market and we are able to evacuate large quantity of rice and this is a clear signal to smugglers. We are backed by the Law, Section 147 of Customs and Excise Management Act has given us the power to enter or search premises day or night, to break and enter, make arrest; in fact, without warrant and that is exactly what we did today.”
The rice sellers and other traders in the market, however, condemned the raid.