The Coordinator, Joint Border Patrol, Zone 3, Muhammed Garba, has said smugglers have devised new ways of smuggling banned items into the country.
According to Garba, they now conceal rice and other contraband in bags containing yam flour.
The Nigeria Customs Service chief said they had impounded 20 bags of yam flour, with foreign rice concealed in some of them at the border route in Kwara State.
Addressing a press conference in Ilorin on Wednesday, the coordinator said over 1, 346 bags of foreign rice loaded in three vehicles had been impounded in a joint border operation.
He said other items seized included used clothes, 57 units of vehicles, petroleum products, 16 motorcycles used for smuggling rice.
Garba said guns, 85 cartridges were recovered in border towns in Kwara and in Lokoja, Kogi State.
He also said the joint patrol also seized 325 cartons of banned cosmetics.
Garba added that the command had been sensitising commercial drivers to the need to obey the new rules on border closure.
He said, “Border closure has increased revenue generation by the Federal Government by blocking all illegal routes used for smuggling. Used clothes are dangerous for people.”
He advised the public to follow the right channel when buying their goods, saying smuggling was a crime attracting five years in prison. Punch
Pix: Smuggled rice intercepted by Customs
