The Nigeria Customs Service Federal Operations Unit, Zone C in Owerri, Imo State, has impounded 1,333 bags of 50 kilogramme contraband rice bearing an overall Duty Paid Value of N38,390,000.
The contraband smuggled into the country was seized by the NCS operatives around the Aba/ Oron axis.
According to the Unit Area Controller in charge of the zone, Alhaji Bukar Amajam, out of the 1,333 bags of rice, 530 bags were craftily loaded into a truck and made to look like bags of cement to beat customs checkpoints on the road.
Amajam said that luck, however, ran out on the suspected smugglers following a tip-off given to the NCS operatives in the area by some public-spirited Nigerians.
The area controller, who disclosed this in a chat with our correspondent at the premises of the Imo/Abia Command of the NCS in Owerri, where all contraband recently seized by his men were on display, said that the command had taken a new step in the right direction.
