Smuggled cars, oil, rice found in 7 container vans at Cebu International Port

Customs Commissioner Ruffy Biazon. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

CEBU CITY, Philippines — The Bureau of Customs opened Tuesday afternoon seven container vans with mis-declared items at the Cebu International Port (CIP) container yard.

Five of the seven container vans contained two Mitsubishi sedan with accessories, a surplus Mazda Elf, a surplus ambulance, one speed boat, a big bike with accessories and used tires. Two other containers were filled with barrels of oil.

Customs Commissioner Rozzano Rufino Biazon who was present during the opening of the container vans, also inspected three of 312 container vans with smuggled rice shipment from Vietnam.

The 312 container vans, which contain 264,000 sacks of premium rice, will be auctioned off on August 7.

According to Biazon, the auction will go on as scheduled despite an ongoing investigation on the pilferage of more than 200 sacks of rice from some of the container vans.

He explained that the seized smuggled rice must be auctioned off before its expiration.

Biazon said they had the names of the persons suspected to have involvement in pilferage but the BOC would not reveal the names, pending investigation.

So far, Biazon said, the BOC in Cebu has confiscated 1,159 containers of smuggled rice.