A spinner luring you into a Ponzi scheme or any other cagey investment plan will sell you the notion that high risk equals high reward. Smuggling has similar pull power.
The promise of a bounty at the end of a successful ploy makes those who give in to the dirty trade forget about the damaging ramifications once caught.
High risk = high reward quickly becomes the reality of risky investment = heavy loss. It invokes belly-sinking dejection.
A daring smuggler of contraband used clothes experienced this recently when the URA equivalent of SWAT, Team One Enforcement, intercepted a truck registered as UBA 859 X with a heavy consignment of contraband used clothes valued at USD 31,757 at Maya, 25.7 kilometers from Kampala CBD.
Team One put in a graveyard shift after gathering intel that the smuggler was en route. At 4 a.m., ‘the promised car’ appeared at the ambush point, and the team emerged from the shadows for the interception.
Prompted to avail documents for the shipment, the master provided a transit declaration with reference number D2305 originating from Rwanda to South Sudan. The equivalent declaration to South Sudan from Uganda was, however, not available.
Space was booked immediately at Nakawa for the truck so the team could ascertain the mystery.
Thorough examination of the consignment revealed 285 bales x 73.4 kg of used clothes (20,919kg) and 249 bales x 23.8 kg of used shoes (5,926.2 kg), with a total CIF at risk of USD 31,757 and an estimated tax element of UGX 98,023,588 at the current exchange rate.
