The Ogun State Command of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) on Tuesday uncovered an illegal oil bunkering site at Idiroko, Ipokia Local Government Area of the State.
The Command also confiscated 40 drums of ethanol and arrested a 40 year old palm wine tapper, Samson Odebija with N2.5million fake currency notes.
The Controller, Michael Agbara who led journalists to the site of the illegal oil bunkering, where the smugglers allegedly conveyed Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) known as petrol through tanker and transferred it into a plastic tank sited in a bush, which was few metres away from the main road.
The suspected oil bunker subsequently filled the fuel into jerry cans and allegedly smuggled the product out of the country.
Agbara told journalists that the oil bunkering was discovered by the anti – bunkering unit of the command through an intelligence gathering.
He said the plastic tank had been taken into custody, while 160 jerry cans filled with petrol were also confiscated by the command’s operatives.
Agbara vowed that the command would go after the perpetrators to arrest and prosecute them.
“We have been preventing smuggling of fuel out of the country and the smugglers too are not resting. They have devised a means by hiding tanker of petrol in the bush while they used other vehicles to shield it from the full glare of the public along the road.
“They will siphon the product into a plastic tank and later fill it into jerry cans. We have taken the tank into custody. If you pass through this place 100 times, you won’t know that such activities are going on.
“We have not made any arrest but through the registration of the tanker we will get the perpetrators,” Agbara said.
The Controller also disclosed that the Command had seized forty drums of industrial alcohol, ethanol, allegedly converted into domestic use by the suspect.
According to him, National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) had stamped the product as “strictly for industrial use” before the suspect allegedly converted it into domestic.
Agbara said the Command would seek court condemnation of the product and subsequently prosecute the suspect arrested with the ethanol.
The Controller also said the palm wine tapper was nabbed with N2.5million fake currency notes, while his accomplice reportedly escaped arrest.
While describing the act as “highly criminal”, Agbara said suspect would have swindled a number of Nigerians with the fake currency notes.
Speaking with newsmen, the suspect said he had helped an unnamed Islamic cleric in transporting the notes from Idiroko to Owode – Yewa in Yewa South LGA, when he was arrested by the customs operatives.
According to him, the Islamic cleric who promised to give him N5,000, upon completion of the assignment, disappeared into the thin air upon his arrest.
