Posted by By ALEX ALAO on
Customs officials patrolling the country's territorial waters have ruined business for some pirates who had siphoned about 264,000 litres of petrol loaded in barges that were heading for the high seas.
Customs officials patrolling the country's territorial waters have ruined business for some pirates who had siphoned about 264,000 litres of petrol loaded in barges that were heading for the high seas.
The barges were moving through the creeks of the Third Mainland Bridge in Lagos, when they were intercepted by customs men from the Western Marine Command.
Customs Area Comptroller of the Western Marine Command, Mr. Samuel Kolo Yisa, whose men recorded the big catch worth over N16.4million told how it all happened.
"My men were just on routine patrol on that fateful day when they sighted the barge on anchorage at Ilagbasa, off the Third Mainland Bridge area. A boat obviously occupied by the pirates was hovering around the barge as if on sentry watch.
"When they spotted my men as they approached the barge, the speed boat took off just as my men radioed the station for enforcement. From the look of things, they were waiting for nightfall before they resumed their journey to the high seas.
"For over four hours, we kept vigil on the barge awaiting the owners to show up, but when it became clear that the products had been abandoned, we called in our towing vessel code-named Henry Duke, to tow it to our base at Coconut, Apapa.
Daily Sun, reliably gathered that the fuel might have been siphoned from a broken pipeline of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) along the Atlas Cove Jetty.
As a proof of this, NNPC officials, who got wind of the catch reportedly, stormed the customs base to see things for themselves. Comptroller Yisa said: "They (NNPC officials) confirmed that there had been such illegal siphoning. They lauded our efforts and even promised to extend same to our Abuja headquarters.