The Joint Border Patrol Team (JBPT), a federal government anti-smuggling task force, has seized 44 bales of infected fairly used clothing and shoe materials known as ‘tokunbo,’ as well as other prohibited items worth millions of naira.
The seizures according to the JBPT were made in the North central region of Nigeria.
Some of the smuggled items, seized along Abuja-Lokoja highway, were loaded in a luxury bus, belonging to a private transport company in the country.
The coordinator of the Joint Border Patrol Team, Sector 3, Comptroller Olugboyega Peters, revealed that the materials are hazardous to human health due to a pungent odor emanating from the bus used to transport the items.
Mr Pters said the JBPT operatives tracked and arrested a trailer with loaded with 550 foreign parboiled rice of 50kg each, along Mokwa-Jebba Road with a duty paid Value (DPV) of N14, 025,000.
The team also intercepted and seized a 2019 Lexus Jeep worth N21 million but the owner evaded a N7.3 million customs duty before he was intercepted.https://www.tvcnews.tv/2022/07/reps-halt-privitisation-of-five-ndphc-power-plants/
Apart from these items, operatives of the team also seized several litres of petrol stored in kegs about to be smuggled out of the country.
Comptroller Peters also revealed that three members of his team were killed in the line of duty by suspected smugglers along the Baruten-Kaiama-Niger Republic axis.
Despite this, he assured Nigerians that his men will not be deterred in their efforts to halt smuggling activities.
