Personnel of the Nigerian Navy Ship (NNS), BEECROFT, Lagos, said they have arrested 10 members of a syndicate that specialises in smuggling petroleum products along the state’s backwaters to neighbouring Benin Republic.
Their arrest followed an intensified surveillance and patrol along the Lagos waterways and creeks.
The suspected pipeline vandals were arrested while in possession of 210,000 litres of diesel in a wooden boat.
The spokesman of BEECROFT, Sub-Lieutenant Veronica Effiong, who confirmed the arrest, said the suspects were first sighted around the Lagos Anchorage area by officers on patrol.
She said the vandals disguised as fishermen and that “it took the prying eyes of the officers on patrol to detect that something was wrong with the attitude of the occupants of the boat,” adding that they had been handed over to the Lagos Command of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC).
