Customs impounds N219m fake drugs, soaps

By AK on September 23, 2015 

The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Federal Operations Unit (FOU), Zone ‘C’, Owerri, has seized prohibited goods with Duty Paid Value (DPV) of N219,375,479.
The Customs Area Controller of the unit, Comptroller Dimka Victor David, who displayed the items at the Customs warehouses in Owerri and Benin at the weekend listed them as 1,920 cartons of banned mosquito coils with a DPV of N38,400,000. He said that the vehicle used for the smuggling has been impounded, while the driver has been arrested and might be prosecuted after necessary investigations are completed.
Another impounded item was 4,480 cartons of foreign Eva soap known in local parlance as “complexion care soap” with a DPV N23,655,720.
The Customs Comptroller disclosed the soaps were seized on September 11 this year, along the Aba/Eleme axis. He said the products could be dangerous to the skin as such smuggled items usually contain corrosive chemicals. “You see people, both men and women, looking not yellow, but red and most of them is as a result of using such soap,” he said.
Dimka, who condemned the use of soaps manufactured without NAFDAC official registration numbers, disclosed that such products usually find their way into the country with Chinese language written on the leaflets, and warned that any consumable item manufactured within or outside the country must not only bear English inscriptions, but also the country of origin, manufacturing and expiration dates.
Other items impounded by the unit, according to Dimka, are 596 pieces of used tyres on the Owerri Port-Harcourt axis with a DPV of N3,439,729, a truck load of 714 various brands of fake drugs on the Benin expressway without NAFDAC registration numbers, manufacturing and expiring dates, as well as brand new six Toyota Hilux with DPV of N57,769,470 impounded on the Asaba/Benin expressway.
His words: “We have more often than not warned on the dangers of using second hand tyres because most of them, if not expired, are discarded in the country of origin and Nigerians will import them resulting in the killing of human beings through road accidents. The Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) is in a better position to tell us how many lives have been lost on the roads as a result of the use of second hand tyres by motorists.”
He stressed the need for Nigerians to always comply with government regulations, adding that importing goods that have been banned is nothing short of economic sabotage.
“Smugglers are simply economic saboteurs. They are the ones killing local companies and throwing thousands of Nigerians into the saturated job market. We will forever fight them until they desist from their ugly act. The war is endless and we are winning,” he said.
While urging Nigerians to join hands with the Customs, the CAC said his unit would always collaborate with sister agencies in the fight against smuggling.
“We will continue to collaborate with other security agencies and organisations like Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON), National Agency for Food Drug Administration Control (NAFDAC) and others. We must fight the ill to protect the lives of Nigerians,” he stated.