ABUJA: Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), on Thursday said its new anti-smuggling squad “Hawk Descend’’ would dismantle illegal routes within the South-West.
Mr Wale Adeniyi, Public Relations Officer of the service, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos that the area was very notorious for the smuggling of poultry products.
Adeniyi stressed that imported poultry was still on the prohibition list, adding that the clamp down on smuggling of the products would be extended to other zones in the country.
He said that the squad known as “Hawk Descend’’ was established to cover the South-West area for a period.
“The focus on the South-West zone is because we discovered that the access for smuggling of the products through the border areas from Benin Republic is highest.
“We did this to ensure that the concentration of the ‘force’ to fight the smuggling activities become hard enough to break the guard,” he said.
He disclosed that in the first week of its operation, ‘’Hawk Descend’’ impounded frozen poultry worth over N12 million.
Adeniyi said that the seizures consisted 1,803 cartons of the banned products.
According to him, a significant number of the seizures were made on the Iyafin-Badagry waterways, which stretched through the Nigeria and Benin Republic border.
NAN reports that the operation ‘’Hawk Descend’’ was launched by the NCS on July 8, to check the activities of smugglers of frozen chicken, turkey and other poultry products.
At the ceremony in Lagos, Comptroller General of the NCS, Alhaji Abdullahi Dikko, said that the squad would operate in the border area of Lagos, Ogun and Oyo states.
He also said that the operation would be for an initial period of three months, from July to September, 2015
He had explained that the exercise was aimed at achieving national food security and protection of the Nigerian economy against saboteurs, adding that the service had zero tolerance for importation of frozen poultry products. (NAN)
