The troops of the 192 Battalion Army operating in the 81 Division Area of Responsibility on Saturday intercepted an ammunition smuggling syndicate while transporting a truckload of smuggled ammunition from Mali to Anambra State.
Director Army Public Relations, Brigadier General Onyema Nwachukwu revealed this in a statement shared on Nigerian Army’s Twitter page on Monday.
The truckload of the ammunition was discovered by the troops during a stop and search operation along Ajilete-Owode road in Yewa North LGA of Ogun State.
The statement partly read, “The troops, who acted on actionable intelligence conducted a meticulous and rigorous Stop and Search operation along Ajilete-Owode Road in Yewa North LGA of Ogun State and uncovered the illegal ammunition in a truck with Registration number ENU 697 XY, loaded with 720 packets of Red Star Cartridges of 12 Calibre, containing 25 cartridges per packet, totalling 18, 000 cartridges and an additional 250 packets of live (black) cartridges containing 10 packets each, totalling 2500 cartridges of the same calibre.
“Identified suspects, Mr Eric Seworvor, a Ghanaian national, and the driver, Mr Lukman Sani, have been taken into custody and are helping with ongoing investigations.
“Information gathered during preliminary investigation revealed that the ammunition, which was surreptitiously concealed in a supposed empty truck was imported from Mali, via Idiroko International Border, where the criminals had successfully beaten several other checkpoints en route their final destination in Onitsha, Anambra State, where they intended to deliver the illegal ammunition.
“Timely intervention by the vigilant troops however thwarted the chaos that such volume of ammunition would have unleashed on innocent members of the public, if the criminals had succeeded.