Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA), Command has again within its five months of establishment has recorded another landmark performance with the interception of $8,065,612m (about N2,929,685,309.79bn) at the airport in 20 sealed wraps.
This was made known today by The Comptroller-General of NIS
Col. Hameed Ali (rtd) who told journalists at the airport that the consignment was packed in a coaster bus and loaded in six Bagco bags with one suspect arrested in connection with the sum.
According to him, the consignment was intercepted at about 1200hrs on January 16, 2020 at the E- Wing of the tarmac of the Lagos Airport.
The next day, Saturday, January 18, 2020, Ali said the service took an inventory of the consignment in the presence of the Directorate of State Security, Customs intelligence unit, anti-money laundering and counter terrorism financing unit, customs, police and the suspect where the sum was confirmed.
He said that the command was able to intercept the sum through credible information gathered on the day the consignment was supposed to be moved out of the country.
He explained further that the service was conducting investigation into the consignment, the real owners and cohorts in the attempted smuggling, adding that after thorough investigation, the fund and the arrested suspect would be handed over to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for further interrogation.
He explained that names were written on each wrap of the money, which were in $100 denomination.
Ali who however noted that it was not a crime to ferry money out of the country, noted any amount of money in excess of $10,000 must be declared to customs by the owners.
He said: “Currently, the value of the threshold in Nigeria is the equivalent of $10,000 and above. Therefore, all travellers in and out of Nigeria, must declare any physical cash in excess of this threshold of $10,000 or equivalent of other currencies or monetary instruments.
“The question is often asked, why do customs or any agency of government need to know if a private person or company is taking out monies for their personal business out of the country. It is for the reason that illegal criminal activities like international terrorism, drug smuggling, arms proliferation are financed by illicit cash movements outside the recognised financial systems.
“Proceeds from other criminal activities like corrupt enrichments from public treasury are similarly siphoned out of the country in cash. To enforce compliance with the monitoring of cross border cash movement, registers are maintained all approved points of entry and exit, where voluntary declarations are maintained. The declaration are then followed up by EFCC to ascertain any possible link between the cash movers and criminal networks.”
In his comment, Customs Comptroller of MMIA Command, Mr. Wale Adeniyi said that since the command was created in August 2019, it had recorded lots of improvements and vowed that it would not relent in its efforts at cleansing the country.
“The management of customs wanted a better patrol of our airport to ensure laws are followed as regards international travels. One of our intelligences, led to the discovery of the latest seizure at the airport.”
