By Akinyi Winiefred
Smuggling continues to manifest itself in different ways. In Elegu at Uganda’s border with South Sudan, round-tripping has been singled out as one of the biggest risks to legitimate trade.
Round-tripping is where traders take cargo to the destination country, offload, and then trickle the goods back into Uganda until the consolidation centers are filled and they sell them on the local market.
In February, URA enforcement learned of a scheme where smugglers would use other stations to exit to South Sudan, then use porous points to re-enter Uganda before proceeding to the Elegu Border in search of road users and temporary road licenses to legalize their smuggling.
The team enhanced their cargo monitoring measures while gathering more intel on the racket. These efforts paid off last week when two truck heads, a Mercedes-Benz Chassis No. WDB9505032L117048 and a Scania YS2P6X40002063903 were intercepted as the owners planned to move them to Kampala in the night.
According to Simon Ssentale, one of the officers in the operation, one of the trucks had been driven as far as Gulu.
“They intended to use forged road user licenses and fake South Sudan number plates to move the trucks,” said Ssentale.
The truck heads were impounded and are currently held at the Elegu awaiting offence management.
