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The Nigerian Customs Service has on Wednesday arrested and detained 28 officers working at the Tin-Can Island Command of the Service in connection with a cache of over 1,500 arms imported illegally into the country.
Recall that TheNewsGuru published yesterday another seizure of arms by Customs, which marked the fourth in the series of arms confiscation at tin can port alone within eight months.
Following the arrest of the 28 officers by Customs on Wednesday [today], there have been panic among top officers of the command as some of them are likely to be affected by the ongoing investigation.
It was also gathered that the detained officers whose names are yet to be released to the public are also being interrogated to determine their level of involvement in the botched plan to ferry the container of arms out of the port undetected
According to a top official close to the command who spoke with TheNewsGuru.com under condition of anonymity the officers and their civilian collaborators will soon appear in court but not until the Service has carried out a detailed and thorough investigation on the matter.
Meanwhile, some of the 28 officers might be left off the hook if the ongoing investigation does not find them culpable as some of them might only be involved in the documentation but not privy to the content of the container.
It would be recalled that some operatives of the Intelligence Unit of the Service on routine duty on September 6th became suspicious of a 1x20ft container which was not initially listed for examination but had through questionable means been positioned with other containers for the day’s examination.
They also discovered that the seal of the container had been cut and padlocked.
The suspicious movement of the container made them ordered that the container be transferred immediately to the Enforcement Unit where it was examined and pump action riffles found in it.
This is the fourth time in this year that the Customs will be intercepting arms and ammunitions from the ports in Lagos.
A total of 2,656 riffles have been intercepted since the beginning of this year.