Twelve persons have been arrested with contraband goods worth millions of Naira by the Nigerian Navy on patrol at the high sea and paraded at the NNS Victory in Calabar, the Cross River State capital.
The suspects, comprising of Nigerians and foreign nationals, were arrested with used bailed clothes, bags of rice, used tyres, toiletries, gallons of groundnut oil, which are in the contraband list.
The officer commanding NNS Victory, Commodore Fredrick Ogu, said the arrest by his men occurred at the late hours of Thursday.
The Commodore, who pledged the Navy’s commitment to eradicating any form of criminalities on the waterways, also expressed concern that some criminal minded persons could enter into the country with ammunition hidden inside such goods.
One of the top officials of the Nigeria Immigration Service, Samuel Igoche, witnessed the parade of the suspects.
He said that synergy between all security agencies in Nigeria was the sure way of fighting criminalities either on land, water or air.
The suspects have been handed over to the Nigerian Customs for further investigation and prosecution to serve as deterrent.