OTTAWA: “Maersk Vancouver aware us that this van was the same container van stripped by the Canadian Customs from almost a year. It was Kaya nga nagstay yung” said BOC Special Agent II Leonard Goerge Carillo, during a media interview.
He said; the Davao Bureau of Customs (BOC) confirmed Friday that the container van that was found to have traces of cocaine in it was previously seized in Canada.
It has been possible through Maersk in tracing the container van’s path; they found out that it was apprehended by the Canadian Customs around September 30 last year in Vancouver, Canada. He said that according to the Canadian Customs, it has around 109 bricks or more or less 130.8 kilograms of cocaine hidden inside.
Before reaching Canada, the container van came from Vladivostok, Russia filled with salmon and was transshipped to Busan, South Korea under World Wide Seafoods Limited.
The said container van with body number MWCU-6285082 was part of the nine container vans under bill lading number MAEU-561020877 when it reached the Philippines.
But Carillo said the farthest that they can reach in tracing the container van’s origin was only until Russia. After being seized in Canada, he said the container van was released as an empty container on September 14 this year. It arrived in Shanghai, China on September 30 and in Hong Kong on November 9 and it reached Davao Port in Tibungco on November 23.
Carillo said the container van was brought to Davao for repair.
“They will focus on the investigation, because it seems that this has become very serious. Initially, we were able to confiscate 64 bricks of cocaine and now it’s based on the container vans that were seized by the Bureau of Customs,” Aquino said.
The result of the investigation conducted by the BOC regarding the subject container van was presented during the monthly Regional Law Enforcement Council Committee meeting on Friday.
Police Regional Office Deputy Director for Operations Aaron Aquino, speaking in the same media interview, said they are activating the Task Force Cocaine, which will be handled by the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency Davao, Davao City Police Office (DCPO), Davao City Prosecutor’s Office, Criminal Investigation and Detection Group-Davao Region, BOC, Philippine Ports Authority, Maritime and the Philippine Coast Guard.
“They will focus on the investigation, because it seems that this has become very serious. Initially, we were able to confiscate 64 bricks of cocaine and now it’s based on the container vans that were seized by the Bureau of Customs,” Aquino said.
The bricks of cocaine were seized and voluntarily surrendered last March after the container van’s interior panels showed remaining bricks hidden in them. With this, Aquino said there is a need to strengthen the security in Davao City.
