By Moses Ebosele, ebosele@hotmail.com –
As part of onging efforts to curtail illegal imports, the Federal Operations Unit (FOU) of Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Zone ‘A’ Ikeja, has intercepted three container loads of fake drugs.
The drug identified as Acipep, Lemdafil and Ciprogyl, were seized by officers of unit based on collaboration and team work.
Customs Area Controller, Mohammed Uba Garba, who was accompanied by representatives of NAFDAC explained in lagos on Wednesday that the the items were shipped into the country in a 40ft container.
According to him, the Duty Paid Value (DPV) of the fake drugs is over N31million, adding,“After intensifying our operational modalities to meet up with the present smuggling tactics, we have intercepted contrabands with Duty Paid Value of over N356million.”
The seized items includes 11 used vehicles, 4,227 bags of imported rice, frozen poultry products, vegetable oil, Indian hemp, medicaments, used tyres, scrap metals, bales of used clothing and shoes, among others.
The items, Garba said, were seized by the unit between August 29 and October 3.
“While seven containers carried unprocessed wood, one container carried scrap metals, another carried wet blue (leather) for export. All fall under export prohibition list.
“Three of the seized containers were medicaments without import documents and certification. Two containers carried a purported made-in- Nigeria cables, but were imported from China. The importer declared the item as electric distribution board and ballast. Only God knows what would have happened if these fake products get into our market,” he said.
The 11 vehicles seized by the unit, it was gathered, include two Lexus Sport Utility Vehicles (SUVs), one Toyota Rav4, two Toyota Camry, five Mercedes Benz and one IVECO truck.
The DPV of the vehicles, according to the controller, is over N125million.
