Two Chinese arrested for running a N5bn substandard tyre business in Lagos

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Police in Lagos have arrested two Chinese, Taolung Shen and Xu Jing Yau, for allegedly running of fake a tyre business worth over N5 billion. 

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The police also sealed the warehouse where they had allegedly been cloning different sizes of tyre under such brand names as Powertrac, Aptany, Harmony, Duraturn, Bearway, City Tour, Winda, Glory, Chachland, City Grand, Grandsonte (Tyre Type) and Sunny (for tricycle) among others.

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Many of the tyres arrived the country with tyres stuffed into one another, sometimes as much as five stuffed in one, and had been bent and ruptured on several portions and looking weak and slack.

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But the Chinese adorned the tyre with new labels and shinning linings to create impression of being new and healthy. The Director-General (DG) and Chief Executive, Standard Organisation of Nigeria (SON), Osita Aboloma, described the tyres as dead on arrival.

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According to him, allowing such consignments sale amounts to surreptitiously taking away the lives of millions of Nigerians. The DG said stuffing tyres through the long sea journey from China to Lagos had already compromised the quality, not to talk of the crude way the tyres were separated on arrival in Nigeria and the poor storage facility, without sufficient aeration, in the warehouse. 

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He said: “You can see the amount of danger that these people are posing to our people and our economy, just because they want to make huge profit at the expense of the lives of Nigerians.”

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Aboloma explained that a lot of illegal activities were ongoing on the premises of the company such as re-labelling, high level of stuffing of several tyres into one, tampering with expiry dates and staking the tyres in very adverse conditions.

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He added: “It is a clear case of investing millions in illicit business in order to take away the lives of millions of Nigerians.” 

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The DG showed tyres in the stock post-dated January as manufactured date but that were already in the country as at the time of the seizure, despite that it would take months for shipments from China to arrive Nigeria.