A Nigerian court on Tuesday gave five sailors from the
Philippines and four from Bangladesh a choice between jail and paying a hefty
fine after convicting them of oil smuggling.
The suspects were arrested in March in Lagos Lagoon aboard
the MT Asteris, which prosecutors said was used to illegally store 3,423 tonnes
of crude oil.
They were each convicted of four counts of illegally storing
crude oil.
Each count carries five years in prison but the sentences
run concurrently, meaning the nine face a maximum of five years jail.
Alternatively they can pay a fine of 20 million naira
($100,000 dollars).
The government has taken ownership of the vessel.
Africa’s biggest oil producer loses billions of dollars each
year from the theft of crude from sabotaged pipelines and illegal refining of
oil products.
The oil is sold on the lucrative black market, depriving the
continent’s most populous state of an estimated $6 billion a year in lost
revenue.
Convictions for oil smuggling are common but in most cases
the offenders get away with a fine.
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