The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) on Tuesday said it had intercepted three boats loaded with marijuana along an unnamed waterway in Lagos.
The Customs Zone `A’ Coordinator, Assistant Comptroller-General Charles Edike, made the disclosure in Lagos while speaking at a Stakeholders` Forum organised by the National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF).
Edike said the boats were intercepted by officers of the Western Marine Command on Sunday, adding that the smugglers had been arrested and would be made to face the full wrath of the law.
The zonal coordinator said that smuggling activities on waterways had been on the increase in recent times.
He, however, said that men of the service were fully on the alert to check illegal activities of water smugglers.
“Smugglers have resorted to using the waterways to carry out their nefarious activities but I can assure you that men of the service are up to the task to check this criminality.
`Just three days ago, our men intercepted three boats fully loaded with marijuana. Our men from the Western Marine Command got the smugglers.
“We will increase our patrols both on land and waters to ensure that smugglers and other economic saboteurs have no hiding place, “the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) quotes Edike as saying.
He said that the service would not yield to calls in some quarters to take away its men on some Federal highways as the deployment was meant to check smugglers who used the highways to carry out their illegal activities.
The zonal coordinator said men of the service had made large seizures of arms from smugglers on some highways, especially around Idiroko in Ogun and Iseyin in Oyo State
Edike said the incidents justified continuous patrols by officers on the highway.
He said more officers had been deployed to bush routes used by smugglers around Seme border, saying that the strategy was to ensure that smuggling activities were limited in the area.
