The Federal Operations Unit Zone ‘A’ of the Nigeria Customs Service on has charged two accused persons, Mr. Fares Chawich,a Lebanese and his Nigeria accomplice, Chief Emmanuel Ekong, to the Federal High Court, Ikeja, for tampering with Customs’ seal placed on five exotic vehicles in their premises for clearing discrepancies.
The Controller, Turaki Usman Adamu stated that the Unit was compelled to charge the accused persons to court following the illegal act of breaking Customs’ seal in violation of Section 145(5) of the Customs and Excise Management Act Cap C45 laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 2004.
He pointed out that intelligence activity led to discovering that the exotic vehicles parked in the premises of the accused in Ikeja GRA were grossly undervalued in clear violation of the Federal Government import policy.
He said: “The Unit had written a letter to the accused following intelligence information that the vehicles did not comply with standard import procedure in terms of due diligence. The documents of the vehicles were eventually subjected to system check at the Unit and was discovered that the vehicles were grossly undervalued.
“In line with Service’s procedure and in our quest to recover appropriate duty accruable to the vehicles, we placed them on Customs’ seal after raising a detention notice which one Mr. Fares Chawich who stood as surety had undertaken to pay.”
The Controller regretted that instead of the first accused coming forward for regularization of duty, he chose to brake the seal and removed the vehicles. The Controller added that it was intelligence activity that led to the discovery of one of the vehicles in Victoria Island area of Lagos.
“The total amount of outstanding duty from the vehicles stands at N232,964,169.00,” he said.