The Nigeria Customs Service, (NCS), has lauded some of its officers for rejecting a whopping bribe of $150,000 from a group of smugglers that were arrested while trying to smuggle $6 million fake dollar notes out of the country.
Area Controller of the Command, Comptroller Dera Nnadi, said the suspects were intercepted at Seme border on January 31, 2023.
During a press briefing, the NCS Spokesperson said the officers of Seme Border Command had intercepted $6 million fake currency bills at Gbaji Customs check point in Lagos.
Nnadi added that the international passports of the fake currency syndicate operating in the axis were also confiscated.
He further explained that the smugglers had offered the customs officers on duty a bribe of $150,000 authentic dollar notes through the head of the team, Musa Istifanus Datsok.
According to him, the syndicate requested passage to take the fake currency out of the country, but the customs officers rejected the bribe.
Nnadi said; “Some of these currencies bear the same serial number, and besides that, it will be very difficult for you to identify them as fake. Similar to this, we also arrested just few hours after this, two other passengers in a different vehicle, while searching them, we discovered some international passports that belong to Malta Republic.
All the six passports we got bear the same photographs of the same person, but with different names. The passport belongs to the republic of Malta, but bears the photograph of someone who appears to be a European and bearing different names for all the six passports.
The same lady also has six international driver’s licenses bearing her photograph with six different names which shows that we are dealing with a very serious syndicate that moves across the borders. We have two suspects each for the currency and international passports.”
