About eight barges, conveying over 100,000 litres of illegally refined Automotive Gas Oil (AGO), popularly called diesel, have been arrested by the Military Joint Task force of Operation Delta Safe (OPDS) in Rivers State.
The barges were arrested by the OPDS team in conjunction with some maritime units in Bonny local government area of Rivers State.
The Commander, Joint Task force, South-South, OPDS, Olusegun Ferreira disclosed this in a statement at the weekend.
He said, “the mandate given by the Chief of Defence Staff to OPDS was to protect oil and gas installations, and ensure that crude oil theft is stopped in joint operation areas.
“This instruction was reiterated during the last conference he had with the Joint Task Force Commander, where he stressed the need for the total eradication of crude oil theft by all means within the joint operation area.
“Having got these directives, the Joint Task force pushed further in its operations, which led to the arrest of eight badges with products suspected to be illegally refined AGO, cumulatively over 100,000 litres in different compartments.
