ZAMBOANGA: Local police operatives have intercepted and seized a shipment of smuggled rice with an estimated value of P300,000 and arrested three persons in a west coast village in Zamboanga City.
Senior Superintendent Angelito Casimiro, Zamboanga City police director, said the smuggled rice shipment was intercepted around 9 p.m. Tuesday at the shore of Purok 2 in the village of Sinunuc.
Casimiro identified the arrested suspected smugglers as Jun Dugasan, Alnadzfrin Silvin and Adding Silvin. They were detained.
He said the Police Station 8 personnel intercepted the smuggled rice shipment following information that sacks of rice are being unloaded from a small-type watercraft locally known as “jungkung” at the shore of Sinunuc village.
Policemen confiscated a jungkung marked “Marwhiza” loaded with around 300 sacks of rice of 25 kilos each.
Casimiro said that two other jungkungs loaded with sacks of rice with unidentified people on board hastily maneuvered to the high seas and escaped upon noticing the presence of policemen.
He said 68 of the 300 sacks of rice were in the custody of the Police Station 8 while the rest and the jungkung were turned over to the custody of the coastguard detachment in the village of Cawit pending turn over to the Bureau of Customs.
The local authorities have tightened their watch, as the smugglers shifted operation by unloading rice along the shores using jungkung.
The new modus operandi of the smugglers is that they moor the vessel loaded with rice at the high seas and use jungkung to transport the cargo to the shore to avoid detection.
They came with such strategy since the local authorities are closely monitoring all activities at the local port to include privately-owned wharves as well as finger wharves in Zamboanga City.
