Last Sunday, the Mutukula enforcement team received intelligence reports from Tanzania of smugglers driving in some Toyota ipsum and constantly ferrying goods to kakuuto village.
According to John Lubakwidha, an enforcement officer in Mutukula, the smugglers were smart enough to move to the Mutukula station to ensure that the URA double cabin had left for Kampala. The smugglers also deployed their informers to monitor the URA team before embarking on their scheme.
Unfortunately, this did not work. The team was aware of their mission and had laid strategies of intercepting their goods.
“We agreed to involve so many contacts to keep tracking the car[Ipsum] and also target the consolidation center in Kakuuto where the goods were being ferried,” Lubakwidha narrated.
After thorough scrutiny, the smugglers were seen in Kakuuto market transferring the goods to a hired truck, registration number UBL 135A.
“We let them load the goods until the truck was full. We also observed that the smuggler would take utmost three hours to drive back to Tanzania and return with the goods and then offload them unto a truck,” Lubakwidha explained on the skillfulness of the smugglers.
By 4:20pm, the URA team was at the location and everyone around took off including the smugglers. Later, a gentleman identified as Walugembe resurfaced as the truck driver begging for apologies as the first time offender.
The URA team ordered him[Walugembe] to drive the truck to the URA offices and the assorted goods were offloaded and verified as follows; beauty products, racks, herbal soaps, phone chargers, shirts, sweaters and beddings. Other items included; flash disks, fishing nets, hooks, dress materials and drinking chocolate
Lubakwidha also revealed that part of the penalty for the culprits is forfeiture of the vehicle for carrying uncustomed goods. Also since there are several owners involved, they will be required to pay half the value of tax.
For ease of detection and arrest of illicit goods URA worked with other agencies like the Uganda Peoples Defence Forces(UPDF) and the Regional Intelligence Liaison Offices(RILO)to impound the truck.
Additional Reporting by Immaculate Wanyenze
