The N4.5billion monthly, oil pipeline surveillance contract recently awarded to leader of the Movement for the Emancipation of Niger-Delta (MEND), Mr. Government Ekpemupolo aka Tompolo, has started yielding results with the successful arrest of a crude oil tanker at the Escravos River in Warri South West local government area of Delta state.
The oil taker, labeled MT Deinmo, with International Maritime Organisation (IMO) number 7210526, was said to be loaded with an unspecified quantity of crude oil at the time of the arrest last weekend, Orient Energy Review gatheredÂ
Tompolo’s maritime security company, Tantita Security Services Limited, was hired by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) to assist curb oil theft and pipeline vandalism in various parts of the Niger Delta.
Also Read: N/Delta: Tompolo Security Discovers 16 Illegal Tapped Points in Trans-Escravos Oil Pipeline
Along the arrested vessel were eight (8) crew members, all Nigerians, who were found inside the ship at the time of interception.
Operatives of the Tantita security group told newsmen that they got a tip-off that a 1,500 metric tons ship was loading at the Escravos axis. The operatives swooped on the ship and the thieves loading the ship and got them arrested.
According to the Tantita security operatives, the culprits offered them the sum of N25million as bribe, which they turned down.
The ship captain allegedly confessed that they came from Lagos to do the loading, and that and that if they were not arrested, the ship would have sailed back to Lagos.
Meanwhile, operatives of the Tantita security group said the ship and the arrested crew have been handed over to the Nigerian Navy for further action.
Also Read: Group Warn Against Awarding Oil Pipelines Contracts to Militants’ Warlord
Last Friday, a team of Tantita Security Services led by its managing director, Engr. Kestin Pondi, took security operatives and oil industry leaders, including Chief of Defence Staff, General Lucky Irabor, group chief executive officer, Nigerian National Petroleum Company [NNPC] Ltd, Mallam Mele Kyari, among others to site of the discovered illegal oil pipeline deftly plugged into the Trans-Escravos pipeline.
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