The Operation Whirlwind Unit of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) has held an auction for 15,000 litres of confiscated Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) while adding that the new pump price of petroleum products has made petrol smuggling even less attractive.
Operation Whirlwind is a Unit created by the Customs Service management to stop the smuggling of PMS from Nigeria to neighbouring countries.
Speaking at the auctioning of seized petroleum products in Lagos, National Coordinator of the Unit, Assistant Comptroller General of Customs, Hussain Ejibunu said that there has been a drastic reduction in the smuggling of PMS, particularly due the to the intervention of the Nigeria Customs and the new pump price.
Ejibunu disclosed that 613 jerry-cans of PMS were seized by the Unit headed by Assistant Controller M. I. Bello around Lagos and its neighbouring states.
He also said that the operation was instituted in May this year, adding that it has yielded positive results just as the Comptroller General of Customs urged the operatives to sustain the tempo in the fight against smugglers of the commodity.
According to the Coordinator, no arrest was made for this particular seizure because smugglers keep devising new means of trying to beat the Whirlwind team.
He said: “Like a pictural example of what happened in Kwara. They hid a lot of jerry-cans, after which they bring in smaller tankers to fill these jerry-cans and then bring in vehicles to move these jerry-cans out of the bush to their destination.
“I can say that there has been a drop in the smuggling of fuel across the country and a lot of factors could be attributed to that and one of it is the price differential.
“It is costly for them to buy at fuel station before they think of smuggling it out of the country.
“This is the reason most fuel station that sell to smugglers are sanctioned and reported to Directorate of Petroleum Resources, a department of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, who in turn shut down these stations or have their licences withdrawn.
“I am not saying there is no smuggling. But the quantum has drastically reduced.”
