The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), said operation of its officers and men at
Fraiser Suit Hotel in Abuja was to remove some suspected vehicles hidden
there.
The Customs’ Public Relations Officer, Mr Joseph Attah made this known in a
statement in Abuja on Thursday.
Attah explained that the operation was carried out based on intelligence report
that some exotic cars were taken to the hotel from cars mart to evade payment
of duties.
“Our attention has been drawn to misinformation making the rounds
concerning visit of our operatives to an Abuja Hotel to remove suspected
smuggled vehicles.
“Our operatives relying on intelligence that owners of some exotic cars
including bullet proof, without duty payment, quickly removed their vehicles
from a car mart and took same to Frasier Hotel, Abuja.
“On arrival at the hotel, our operatives interacted with the manager and
eventually left with four vehicles, leaving six behind, while expecting the
manager to provide the keys to those six,’’ he explained.
He said the manager of the hotel visited the customs headquarters Thursday
morning and dropped a written undertaking to produce a Customs vehicle
duty payment documents to support his claim that the vehicles were not
smuggled.
“We assured him of prompt release of the vehicles as soon as evidence of
appropriate duty payments is presented.
“Unfortunately, we woke up to mischievous misrepresentation, our operation
has nothing to do with the guests in the hotel.
“Some even went as far as saying that the operatives went from room to rooms
waking up guests to come out for vehicle verification. That is untrue.’’
He said that NCS did not engage in such thing and had no intention to start
raiding hotels.
Attah emphasised that Customs operatives never infringed on the rights and
comfort of guests in the hotel.
