Five people allegedly involved in illegal tax collections have been apprehended by a team of security agencies at different locations in two local government areas of Benue State.

The arrestade at the weekend across major highways in the state were a follow-up to the multiple operations against illegal roadblocks across Benue State by the Taskforce team Governor Hyacinth Alia constituted and led by the Acting Executive Chairman of the Benue State Internal Revenue Service (BIRS), Emmanuel Agema.

Media Assistant to the BIRS Chairman, Jacintha Benard, on Monday said that the combined team, comprising operatives of the Nigeria Police Force and the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps arrested five notorious culprits at three locations in Ushongo and Vandeikya LGAs.

Benard said that at one of the locations, Akerior in Ushongo, the security operatives discovered a nearby house where the touts rented a room which they were using as their operating base.

She said cooking items, clothes, mosquito net, a register book and receipt booklets bearing “Benue Associates of Tiv Beranda Co” among other items were found and confiscated.

The media aide stated that the illegal checkpoints were also dismantled and destroyed while those arrested would prosecuted accordingly.

Benard said that her boss observed during the exercise that as much as the taskforce team on illegal roadblocks had recorded huge successes during their exercise, there were still pockets of such checkpoints in operation by some notorious criminals, hence the decision to lead the clearance exercise, which he promised would be sustained until the menace was totally eradicated. (Daily Trust)