MANILA: Various truck parts from Japan and Korea were confiscated by officials of the Bureau of Customs (BOC)-Northern Mindanao district with the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency’s (PDEA) K9, at the Mindanao Container Terminal (MCT) Thursday morning. Five cargo vans containing truck spare parts were opened before reporters on Thursday.
Lawyer Roswald Joseph Pague, BOC-Northern Mindanao chief of staff, said that based on their assessment, the apprehended items were estimated to be worth P10 million. In the report submitted by the Anti-smuggling and Anti-corruption team (Asact) to the media, the container vans arrived at the MCT early this month but were declared as seized Wednesday, August 24. Alvin Enciso, chief of BOC-Northern Mindanao’s Customs Intelligence and Investigation Service and core member of the Asact, said that four of the vans were traced to the consignee Transport Automotive Sales Corp. based in Imus, Cavite.
“When it was learned that the consignee is from Cavite, we got suspicious and upon the alert order of District Collector Ruby Claudia Alameda, we opened the container vans,” Enciso told reporters. Enciso said it baffled the Customs officials why the container vans were shipped to the MCT when the nearest port is in Manila.
The shipper, BOC-Northern Mindanao said, was identified as Zulfiqar Motors Co. Ltd. with address at Koshigaya City, Saitama Prefecture in Japan. Enciso said the consignee has committed “technical smuggling” when it failed to declare the cargoes properly.
Based on the documents submitted, the truck parts were intended as replacement items but they were actually assembled truck sections. Enciso said when cargoes are declared as replacement, the consignee will have to obtain a different permit from the Department of Trade and Industry’s Bureau of Import Services.
Confiscated were truck parts assembly, cabin, chassis, engine, shock absorber, differentials, windshield glass, tires with rim, dashboard siding top cover, used door, front axle, rear axle gas tank, and cargo box. The fifth van’s consignee was identified as GB Import Export Trading and Baros Kenjiemael Import Export Trading with address at Barangay Kauswagan, this city.
During the confiscation, PDEA agents with their two highly trained sniffing dogs were also deployed to determine if there are illegal drugs inside the container vans. “We can’t allow illegal drugs to be brought in to our country through our ports. We want our ports to be drug-free,” Alameda said.
