NSCDC pledges to intensify war against oil thieves, arrest three in Rivers

September 14, 2022

NSCDC female squad during parade

The Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), said that it would continue to prosecute the war against oil theft and economic sabotage.

This is as the command announced the arrest of three suspects with a big wooden boat and two vehicles loaded with illegally refined petroleum products.

Commandant of the NSCDC, Rivers State Command, Michael Ogar, who made the pledge when he paraded the suspects, explained that the NSCDC Rivers State Command’s Marine and Land Patrol team arrested the suspects and impounded the said items.

According to a statement signed by the Public Relations Officer of the NSCDC, Rivers State Command, Olufemi Ayodele, a Deputy Superintendent of Corps (DSC), the State Commandant stated that following the dissolution and reconstitution of the Anti-Vandal Unit of the corps across the federation; the Rivers State Command with a renewed vigour had impounded a large wooden boat laden with about 24,000 litres of Dual Purpose Kerosene (DPK).

He relayed that the suspects loaded the illegally refined petroleum products in cellophane bags and concealed them in sack bags.

“The products were carefully arranged in the wooden boat such that a layman would assume it as a passenger boat but based on sustained intelligence the suspects: William Chen, aged 29, male and Emmanuel Uriah, aged 27, male were tactically double crossed and arrested by our marine team on Isaka Creek, off the new Calabar River axis in Rivers State”.

In a related development, the land patrol team arrested one Anayo Obasi, aged 38 years, male, with a yellow and lemon coloured mini bus with registration number ABIA BND 82 ZM laden with about 1,500 litres of illegally refined automotive gas oil (AGO) concealed in cellophane.

Same as another Toyota Camry car with number plate LAGOS GN 76 LND laden with about 1,500 litres of illegally refined AGO was impounded at Abonnema Wharf by UTC junction in Port Harcourt.

Issuing a warning to those milking the economy of the nation through oil theft and illegal oil bunkering activities, Ogar urged them to relocate from Rivers State, declaring that as the new Sheriff in town, he would neither compromise nor leave any stone unturned in dealing with them.

The Rivers NSCDC boss affirmed that the suspects would have their time in court, appealing to the public to provide the Command with credible and actionable intelligence that would enable the Command to clamp down on all oil thieves in the state.

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