Two women and a deaf and dumb handicap were among eleven persons arrested when operatives of the Joint Task Force (JTF) code-named ‘Operation Restore Hope’ swoop on an illegal petroleum depot in Warri, Delta State .



About 400,000 litres of petroleum products suspected to be Automotive Gas Oil (diesel) was seized from the suspects, who operated from a depot near the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) yard in Warri.



The refined petroleum products were loaded in over 1,500 drums, two surface tanks and jerry cans among others, when the JTF operatives stormed the scene.



Petroleum product dealers told our correspondent that the street value of the recovered products is about N60,000,000:00 going by the current market value of N150 per litre of diesel.



It would be recalled that the task force had busted nearly 300 illegal refineries in Delta State within the past months.



However, 11 suspects, who were believed to have stolen the products from a pipeline in the riverside community, were scooping them into drums for movement into the market when nemesis caught up with them.



They were picked up on Friday at the Miller Waterside in Warri, Delta State .



JTF’s Joint Media Campaign Centre Coordinator, Lt. Col. Rabe Abubakar, said the 11 suspects, who are being detained at JTF Headquarters, Effurun, were caught while scooping petroleum products, suspected to be diesel, into drums.



Lt. Col. Rabe said the JTF operatives, “acting on a tip-off have once again discovered an illegal petroleum depot at the site near Nigeria Port Authority, Warri which led to the arrest of the oil thieves.”



Items recovered according to him, included over 1, 500 drums, two Cotonou boats, 16 pumping machines and several surface tanks filled with substance suspected to be Diesel which if translated into monetary value could be hundreds of millions of naira been lost to this menace.



Colonel Abubakar said, in addition to the economic lost which the illicit activities have done to the Government, it equally damages motor vehicles of some innocent buyers of such products.



Meanwhile, the JTF Commander, Brig. Gen. Wuyep Rimtip, has vowed that he would not summit to the intimidation and blackmail by crude oil thieves operating in the region.



He said he was entirely focussed on providing efficient service delivery and optima security in the volatile oil-rich Niger Delta region, adding, “no amount of intimidation or blackmail would deter the security outfit from carrying out its legitimate duties, that is, Internal Security Operation and the protection of oil installations and its personnel and other law abiding citizens.”



Similarly, Rimtip, in a statement by Lt. Col. Abubakar, also dismissed as “baseless, untrue and unpatriotic” insinuations that the task force is responsible for the lingering crisis in the region.