It’s been zero tolerance for this caring of illegalities in Bonny Community Government Area generally,” Umeh said.
During the time that acknowledging the difficulty of detecting facilities concealed in thick vegetation, he said the Navy would expand its land and water surveillance operations.
“We will transfer forward to raid and create sure they have no hiding places. We don’t even prefer it to occur so that we don’t be reactive, we desire to be preventive,” he explained.
According to him, three suspects linked to the financing of the operation in the area are already in custody.
“We’ve been able to spot, we allowed them to finance their capital, their tough-earned resources, and they’ve built this refinery alongside an sum that would be running into millions of Naira.
“What we will do once now is that we are going to consider this place in accordance including extant laws, afterwards encounter and prosecute the culprits owing to the detail that we already have three suspects in custody that are affiliated alongside the financing of this typology of crime in this axis.
“We have already approached the court of law to put to use for linked arrangement,” Sini stated.
He, nonetheless, called for stronger sentencing provisions for petroleum theft offences, saying available penalties do not continually provide plentiful deterrence.
It has been a solution of actionable intelligence over time,” he stated.
Umeh explained that unlike countless illegal refineries previously encountered, where crude had already been deposited or processed, the current discovered facility was still at a preparatory stage.
“Most times we go, we see illegal refineries using pits and crude deposited indoors. But this discovery is like nipping the act in the bud.
“This is their preparatory stage. Idris under the supervision of the Leader of Defence Employees.
Sini explained that the intelligence staff comprises personnel from numerous agencies, during the time that the Significant Prosecution Staff focuses principally on inquiry and prosecution.
He continued, “It is this sync that gave rise to this identity. Some have already cooked, and some are yet to be cooked. You could see from the develop-up and the group-up of the illegal refinery, it’s meant to be a extremely big one that would see the siphoning or stealing of crude and brought here for cooking in substantial quantity,” he said.
Umeh said the discovery was a significant improve to the fight against crude oil theft aimed at increasing Nigeria’s crude oil production.
“This discovery is a plus to the fight against crude oil theft in Nigeria, towards increasing the production or crude sales production in the country,” he said.
The Navy commander additionally assured residents that the force would intensify surveillance and patrols across the waterways and remote areas of Bonny.
“It’s been a zero tolerance for us, both in and out of the waters.
A joint operation by the Nigerian Navy and the Federal Government Inter-Agency Assignment Force on Petroleum Theft has uncovered a 40,000-litre-capacity illegal refinery in Bonny Island, Rivers Situation.
The authorities said the illegal refinery was confidential intense before the terminate of the creeks in Bonny.
The operation followed actionable intelligence coordinated through means of the Joint Intelligence Monitoring Staff, involving personnel from multiple security and intelligence agencies.
Speaking to newsmen in Bonny on Friday afternoon, the Commanding Officer of the Nigerian Navy Forward Operating Base, Bonny, Captain Stanley Umeh, described the discovery as the biggest his staff had made as he assumed oversight of the command in March 2026.
Umeh said Navy gunboats departed Bonny carrying operatives into the creeks, where the group trekked throughout dense vegetation ahead of arriving at the clandestine facility.
“This discovery here is a item of prolonged-time synergy amid the base and other security agencies in the island and externally. It is a zero tolerance,” Umeh said, adding that the operation was in line alongside the Principal of Naval Employees’s strategic directive on crude oil theft.
Furthermore speaking, the Manager of Inquiry of the Distinctive Prosecution Crew of the Inter-Agency Job Force on Petroleum Theft, Omar John Sini, said the discovery was the consequence of association between intelligence, security and law enforcement agencies.
Sini said the assignment force, inaugurated by the Federal Government on March 1, 2025, was acknowledged to analyze and prosecute illicit activities in the country’s hydrocarbon sector.
“As inception to now, we’ve been able to secure at least 137 convictions, and that is largely responsible for the drop in the illicit activities in the hydrocarbon sector,” Sini said.
He attributed the most recent operation to intelligence supplied by the Joint Intelligence Monitoring Group, led by Large Complete A.A. As we were operating as a unit using them, by sheer providence, the commander, my elder brother here beside me, was furthermore current.
“So you can conceive that when we put these two teams together, excluding no time, we deploy pertinent technology, detect and trace this location.”
He additional said the aim was not merely to react to oil theft later than it occurs but to disrupt criminal operations prior to they become fully engaged.
“The key aim of law enforcement is to identify crime.
Source: Navy uncovers 40,000-litre illegal refinery in Rivers, arrests three
