The Nigerian Customs Service (NCS) has seized 227 cartons of 56, 750, rounds of ammunition at Igboho area of Oyo State, just as the state Police Command said it intercepted about 3,500 live cartridges in Saki yesterday.
The Customs Area Controller, Mr. Richard Oteri, said yesterday in Ibadan that each carton “contained the red sar high speed of 250 cartridges of 12 gauges.”
Oteri said his men did not make any arrests in connection with the ammunition as the suspects abandoned their vehicle and fled upon sighting his men.
According to him, the smugglers of the ammunition concealed them in bags packed with dried tubers of cassava in a lorry.
The Customs boss, who later handed over the ammunition to the Oyo State Deputy Commissioner of Police, Mr. Musa Kimo, called on law-abiding citizens and traditional rulers to always volunteer information that would assist in tackling smuggling.
The Commissioner of Police, Mr. Muhammed Indabawa, while parading a suspect identified as Soliu Akanji before journalists, said policemen intercepted a white car marked Lagos AW 965 KTU while on routine patrol in Isale Adini area of Saki.
Narrating how the suspect was nabbed, Indabawa said the driver of the car suddenly stopped when he sighted the police and the five occupants jumped out and fled in to the bush, but the police chased after them which led to the arrest of Akanji.
Indabawa said the cartridges were discovered in the vehicle when a search was conducted and vowed that the police would soon catch up with the fleeing suspects.
