NBI nabs 7 suspects for smuggling of oil

The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) announced Friday the arrest of seven persons suspected of being members of a syndicate smuggling in petroleum products in Bataan.

Agents of the NBI National Capital Region rounded up late on Wednesday afternoon seven vessel operators believed to be engaged in siphoning off hundreds of thousands of liters of oil from delivery barges while in the sea off  Lamao village, Limay town in Bataan.

NBI-NCR head Constantino Joson, leader of the agency’s “Operation Black Gold,” said that the syndicate’s activities deprived the government of revenues from taxes on millions of liters of petroleum products that should have been brought in by the barges to depots.

“They become the middlemen of oil products from the barges and sold to land-based tankers owned by some gasoline stations,” Joson said.

He identified the suspects as Raul Crisostomo, Petronilo Cuerda, Ruel Albaracim, Carlito Tano, Normalyn Aquino, Alejandro Filosopo and Isagani Cervantes.

“They (suspects) said that their contacts in the oil barges call them to tell them when they could siphon off the fuel,” Joson said.

He said operators of the vessels disguised as fishing boats sailed near the oil barges, climbed aboard and siphoned off a large quantity of the petroleum products. They then brought the pilfered fuel to shore and unloaded the oil onto waiting tankers, some of them owned by gasoline stations, he added.

Joson said that the members of the syndicate could load up to 20,000 liters of petroleum products in the middle of the sea.

He said oil containers or drums were hidden beneath the vessels and oil siphoned off with the use of generator-operated pumps and large hoses.

“There are many oil barges, if these small vessels do this the whole day, they could get hundreds of thousands of liters or millions in a day,” he said.

Joson said one of the suspects claimed that he earned P3,000 in a week from the activity and that his group was able to fill up 60 drums a day pilfered oil.

“Oil pilferage from the vessels is rampant in the seas of Limay, Bataan. We believe that some employees inside the oil depots are involved in this,” Joson said.