*The Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, in Rivers State, says a Joint Task Force and Command’s Anti-vandal Team arrested the five trucks and a suspect conveying illegal petroleum products without haulage licences and other required documents

Alexander Davis | ConsumerConnect

As the country intensifies efforts at tackling oil theft and illegal dealings in petroleum products, the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), in Rivers State, has impounded five trucks for conveying illegally refined petroleum products.

ConsumerConnect reports

Michael Ogar, Commandant of

NSCDC in Rivers State, disclosed this development at a media briefing in Port Harcourt, the state capital.

The Commandant disclosed that the agency’s operatives arrested a suspect for involvement in oil theft and dealings in illegal petroleum products.

Ogar explained that three of the five trucks were impounded by a Joint Task Force for conveying 142,000 litres of petroleum products without haulage licences and other required documents.

According to him, the other two trucks were impounded by the Command’s Antivandal Team.

The NSCDC also said the Command’s Antivandal Team apprehended certain Abubakar Suleiman, aged 20 years, on Azikiwe Road in Port Harcourt, while conveying an open body long truck with constructed inner tanks used to convey illegally refined petroleum products.

The suspect, he further noted, loaded petroleum products in hidden tanks on the truck and used animal feeds to cover them so as to divert the attention of the security men on the way.

However, Ogar stated the eagle eyes of the regulatory agency’s operatives, the truck was impounded and the suspect arrested in the process.

He said following a tip off, another long truck was impounded while conveying illegally refined Automotive Gas Oil (AGO) with noodles packs.

Ogar, therefore, assured Nigerians that at the expiration of a thorough investigation, the suspect would be charged in court while the tankers and the contents would be forfeited to the Federal Government after a court of competent jurisdiction has given judgment.

The clampdown on illegal bunkering activities in Rivers has been largely successfully in past three months, he stated.

The NSCDC Commandant as well confirmed that the soot in the state’s atmosphere has significantly reduced.