Custom, police, army parade 24 suspected rice smugglers

A combined team of men of the Nigeria Navy, Police and Customs at the weekend paraded 24 persons in connection with alleged smuggling of bags of rice from Benin Republic to Nigeria.

The security agents also paraded 850 bags of50 kilograms of rice allegedly smuggled into the country by the suspects.

Parading the suspects in Ilorin, the state capital, state commissioner of police, Kayode Egbetokun, said that 15 of the suspects were arrested in Offa by the officers of the Navy School of Health Sciences, who he said also impounded the rice.

Egbetokun said that the 15 suspects were the drivers transporting the smuggled rice in various vehicles to some destinations where they were asked to keep the goods.

The police boss, who said that the Navy handed over the suspects and the impounded goods to the police for investigations, added that investigations conducted by the police led to arrest of the remaining nine suspects.

He said the nine suspects whom he described as the owners of the smuggled goods were arrested at different locations both within and outside the state.

Read Also: Navy nabs 12 suspected rice smugglers in A’Ibom

Egbetokun said that the suspects confessed that they bought the rice from Cotonou in Benin Republic to sell in Nigeria.

The police boss, who spoke with newsmen at the state police headquarters in Ilorin In company of officers of the state command of the Nigerian Customs Service said that the police had concluded their investigation and would hand over the suspects and the impounded goods to the Customs for further investigations.

Head of the delegation of the Customs officers at the venue, Adamu Yahaya, a Chief Superintendent of Customs  thanked both the police an the Navy for the job done and assured that the Customs would judiciously carry out its assignment on the matter.