BOC destroys smuggled cigarettes in Zamboanga

ZAMBOANGA CITY—The Bureau of Customs (BOC) on Tuesday destroyed some P50 million worth of smuggled cigarettes in a warehouse in Barangay Baliwasan here. Segundo Sigmundfreud Barte Jr., the BOC district collector, said the contraband consisted of 1,278 master cases and 513 reams of cigarettes that were sneaked into the country and seized in the bureau’s antismuggling campaign in December last year. The cigarettes were crushed by a payloader and then soaked in used oil and water before these were taken to the city’s sanitary landfill. —JULIE S. ALIPALA