Bus with concealed smuggled goods intercepted

A Customs Excise and Preventive Service (CEPS) task force, from Aflao, at the weekend intercepted an Aflao-Kumasi bound passenger Benz bus, with large a quantity of smuggled goods in secret apartments at Akatsi.

The goods are made up of 605 pieces of imitation wax prints and 23 dozens of ladies panties and dresses, with their value put at GH¢27,555 and duty element, GH¢12,400.

The driver, one Kwabena, who was in charge of the sixty-seater bus, with registration number GC 1057 C, and his mate, name unavailable, fled into a nearby bush and remain on the run.

Sources said the driver, with a suspected smuggler, allegedly drove the bus to an auto workshop at Aflao under the pretext of fixing a fault on it on Friday.

Under the cover of darkness, however, they removed parts of the body frames forming the lower side of the bus, concealed the goods in the holes there and re-sealed the frames, leaving the main boot empty.

Mr. Evans Klutse, an Assistant Commissioner of CEPS, in charge of Aflao, told the Ghana News Agency (GNA) that at about 2100 hours, on Saturday, the Task Force flagged the bus to a stop, at the outskirts of Akatsi, but found no goods in the boots.

He said on closer examination, the team suspected the tampering of some of the screws holding the car frames and ordered the removal of those frames, leading to the discovery of the goods there and at other sides of the bus.

Mr. Klutse said the bus and the goods had been seized pending the outcome of full instigations.

The caretaker on the bus, Emmanuel Yovo, 21, a Togolese, who decided not to run, and is assisting with investigations, said he had no fore knowledge of the crime.

Yovo explained that on arrival at the workshop, at about 1800 hours, on Friday, he left to pass the night in Lome, to safeguard monies on him upon the advice of the driver, but little did he know that the driver  had a plan to execute in his absence.

Source: GNA