Neil Estrella (left), Customs intelligence officer, watches a BIR employee using a taggants reader on a carton of Mighty cigarettes. (CDN PHOTO/JUNJIE MENDOZA)
Cartons filled with the local cigarette brand Mighty Cigarettes that bore fake tax stamps have reached the port of Cebu and Tacloban cities.
The Bureau of Customs (BOC) seized 400 cartons of Mighty Cigarettes with alleged fake stamps in Tacloban City and two 40-footer container vans in Cebu City yesterday.
Edgar Quejada, Bureau of Internal Revenue in Eastern Visayas’ legal officer, said the owner of the shipment in Tacloban deprived the government of about P6 million in excise tax.
Using a gadget, Quejada inspected the cigarette packs which produced a red light, indicating the stamps were fake. A green light would mean these were real.
The 400 cartons were inside a container van loaded from MV Lady Alina which arrived at the Tacloban port at 9 p.m. last Monday, said BOC special agent Francisco Colmenares.
“We received information from our intelligence office division in Cebu, Verne Enciso, that about 400 boxes of cigarettes with fake stamps are loaded in the said ship which came from Manila,” Colmenares said.
The container van was opened for inspection yesterday in front of BOC Commissioner Nicador Faeldon and Quejada.
“We will first establish who is the owner of the items and from there, we will see what possible actions the BIR will take. But initially, we can charge the owner for using fake stamps which is a criminal offense,” Quejada said.
Using a taggants reader, Customs personnel confirmed that the stamps used were fake.
Colmenares said the seized items were supposed to be delivered to a warehouse by the Mighty Corp., the manufacturer of the seized cigarettes, in San Jose district, Tacloban City. “But for now, we will take custody of the items,” he said.
In Cebu City, two 40-footer container vans were seized at the Pier 4 in Cebu City after these were unloaded from MV Don Alberto Sr. of Gothong Shipping Lines from Manila via Tacloban City.
Neil Estrella, director of Customs Intelligence and Investigation Service (CIIS), opened the vans yesterday.
He said he believed that these cigarettes were part of the shipment a portion of which was seized in an operation in Pampanga.
Those cigarettes that were not confiscated in Pampanga were sent to different areas and warehouses in the country, Estrella said.
The BOC and the BIR seized 11,044 master cases of Mighty cigarettes worth P215 million in General Santos City on top of the 62,000 master cases worth P1.98 billion in San Simon, Pampanga, because their tax stamps were fake.
The BOC in Cebu was still verifying the documents to determine the market value of the shipment consigned to one Rolando Pocong.
A month ago, the BIR Cebu office also seized 165 boxes filled with “Mighty” brand cigarettes in a mall in Mandaue City.
“We forwarded the details to our main office and they will file charges,” BIR officer Homer Inoferio said.
Lawyer Neri Yu, chief legal officer of BIR District 13 said the confiscated cigarettes were found in the wine and cigarette section of the mall’s supermarket.