Operatives of the Nigerian Customs Service have uncovered a daring tactics of smugglers to beat the custom checks at the borders by freighting bags of rice as coffins carried in ambulances.
This new method by the smugglers was unmasked on Thursday when the operatives of the Customs apprehended an ambulance-laden with bags of rice while pretending to be carrying corpses from from Benin Republic into Nigeria.
The suspected smuggler, the suspected smuggler, Moses Degbogbahun, was arrested at the Seme Border by the operatives of the Nigeria Customs Service who promptly arrested the vendor.
Degbogbahun was said to have arranged 11 50kg bags of rice in place of a corpse in his Volvo ambulance with Lagos registration number DV 74EKY.
The regularity of the man’s across-the-border operations however aroused the suspicion of one egeale-eyed Customs operative at Aradagun area of Badagry to who insisted on seeing the “corpse”.
It was however to their utter dismay when they discovered that the so many “corpses” which they had allowed across the border turned be rice bags.
Rice smuggling across Seme Border has become a lucrative trade since the Federal Government banned rice importation into the country in its attempt to boost local capacity.
Despite the presence of Customs, visitors to Badagary area can see several motorcycles with two or thee bags of rice strapped to into making inward journey to Nigeria.
According to sources, some of them are being ferried across by men of the Nigerian military.
