A court in Nigeria 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.
Source: Vanguard Newspaper
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