The Joint Border Patrol in the North-Central Zone, Sector 3, has seized a 2019 Lexus jeep worth N21 million and other contraband items with an estimated Duty Paid Value (DPV) of N25 million.

The team’s coordinator, Olugboyega Peters of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), disclosed this at a news conference on Wednesday in Ilorin.

Mr Peters said that while the 2019 Lexus jeep was intercepted in Benue, operatives of the team acting on a tip-off tracked and arrested a truck marked SRP 501XA loaded with 550 bags of 50kg rice on the Mokwa-Jebba road.

According to him, the DPV of the bags of parboiled rice is N14,025,000.

The coordinator of the team, comprising personnel of the Nigerian Army, Police, Nigeria Customs Service and Nigeria Immigration Service, said a luxurious bus (Macapolo) was also intercepted on the Abuja-Lokoja highway conveying fairly used clothing.

He said 44 bales of secondhand clothing and 16 sacks of fairly used shoes, with a Duty Paid Value (DPV) of N3, 680, 000 were seized.

Mr Peters said the reinvigorated operatives of the sector, at different times and locations, intercepted and seized 3,068 gallons of 25 litres of petrol.

The coordinator said that the smugglers were caught in an attempt to smuggle the product out of the country.

He said that petrol smuggling through the sector had decreased due to its operatives blocking all avenues boosting the illicit trade.

He further said in line with the extant laws, most of the inflammable products had been auctioned to the public and the amount generated as fees remitted to government coffers. 

(NAN)