The Joint Military Task Force (JTF) has paraded seven persons suspected to be involved in illegal bunkering.
The task force also impounded seven fuel tankers of 33,000 litres capacity each, four pumping machines, two speed boats, nine mobile phones and a Rover car.
The JTF spokesman, Maj. Omale Ochagwuba, said in Effurun, Delta, on Friday that four of the tankers had already been loaded with fuel suspected to be crude oil.
The other tankers were awaiting trans-loading from the boats before they were impounded, he said.
Ochagwuba said the arrests were made on March 7 during an operation carried out together with mobile policemen at Mosogar, Ethiope West Local Government Area of the state.
The suspects, who included a teenage mechanic, claimed that they were arrested for just being on the road.
A suspect, Mr. Sunday Okiki, said he was riding in the car with his friend, two girls and the mechanic from Oghara to Sapele in Delta when the police arrested them at Mosogar.
Okiki said that they heard a gunshot on getting to Mosogar junction and parked by the roadside thinking that it was armed robbers when a Hilux van stopped beside them.
He said the policemen came out of the van and ordered them out of it, checked their vehicle’s particulars, searched the vehicle and found some money.
Okiki, who claimed that he works with the revenue department of the Sapele Local Government Council, said the N200,000 found on them was for the supply of cement.
Another suspect who owns the Rover, Peter Ayeni, confirmed Okiki’s statement, saying that he called the mechanic to come to Oghara to repair his broken down car.
He said the mechanic, Ogbonna Orji, had repaired the car and all of them, including the ladies, were driving back to Sapele when they were arrested.
The mechanic told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in tears that his workshop was behind a bank in Sapele.
Ochagwuba, however, said that the suspects would be handed over to the EFCC.