Firm claims being used to ship out gun parts

The owner of the firm that was named consignee of the mis-declared shipment from California came out last Friday to clear his name and his company.

Nazario R. Canono, owner of D’ Golden House Trading Co., visited the Bureau of Customs and told BOC District Collector Ronnie Silvestre that his company was just used as the consignee of the shipment.

D’ Golden House Trading Co. at Bacalla Compound, Holy Name Street in barangay Mabolo was the consignee of the container van that BOC intercepted and opened last Nov. 29.

The van contained truck heads, used household goods, bullets and gun parts estimated to worth at least P400,000.

Before going to the BOC, Canono already sent a notarized letter to Silvestre saying that D’ Golden House Trading Co. is a registered importer based in Cebu, but he denied ownership of the seized items.

Despite Canono’s denial, he is still under investigation.

Yesterday, Silvestre held a meeting with other government agencies to help track down the real shipper and consignee of the illegal shipment inside the 45-foot van.

The investigation team is composed of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), Criminal Detection and Investigation Group (CIDG), Firearms Explosives Security Service Agency and Guards Supervisory Section (FESSAGS), Intelligence Service, Armed Forces of the Philippines (ISAFP) and Philippine Center on Transnational Crime (PCTC) personnel attended the meeting.

“We agreed to divide responsibilities on the conduct of the investigation.” Silvestre explained.

The US Homeland Security had also been assisting BOC in the investigation.

Based on the documents, the carrier of the container van was NYK Line from Oakland, California.

The forwarding agent was Calorama Freight Services Inc. of Mandaue City.

The boxes of ammunition were issued to a certain Robert Granthom and the receipt showed that these were bought from AIM Inc. at 3801 Lefferson Road, Middletown, Ohio.

The first van, which was mis-declared as “personal effects” and originated from California, arrived in Cebu last Nov. 15.

The consignee identified as a certain “Renato Ramos” of JP Rizal Street, Banilad, Cebu City, turned out to be fictitious.

The seized items were scheduled for auction this month.

Silvestre said the container van opened last Nov. 29 was the last of four that arrived in the country in the past few days. Two of the vans arrived in Manila.  Rhea Ruth V. Rosell, Correspondent