2 vans of Mighty cigarettes with fake tax stamps seized in Cebu

SMUGGLED:  Neil Estrella (left), the CIIS director of the Bureau of Customs, watches as a BIR employee uses a taggant reader on Mighty cigarette packs to confirm that the tax stamps on the boxes were fake.  The BOC seized two container vans of Mighty cigarettes at Pier 4 in Cebu City.(PHOTO BY JUNJIE MENDOZA/CDN)

CEBU CITY — The Bureau of Customs seized two 40-footer container vans which contained Mighty cigarettes believed to have counterfeit tax stamps, at the Pier 4 here on Tuesday noon.

The vans were unloaded from the MV Don Alberto Sr. of the Gothong Southern Shipping Lines, which arrived in Cebu City last Sunday, from Manila via Tacloban City, Leyte.

Neil Estrella, Customs Intelligence and Investigation Service (CIIS) director, along with Bureau of Internal Reveue (BIR) opened one box, which contained packs labeled the ‘Mighty’ cigarette brand.

Estrella told reporters on Tuesday that these cigarette boxes were believed part of the shipments of Mighty cigarettes with fake tax stamps.  One such shipment was seized in an operation in Pampanga last week.

“BOC is receiving reports that some of the products that were not seized in Pampanga were sent to different areas and warehouses in the country,” he said.

The seized cigarettes in Cebu will be turned over to the BIR office in Cebu for an inventory.

Estrella said they were still checking the documents to identify the consignee and the market value of the shipment seized in Cebu.

Different operations were done last week in General Santos City and San Simon in Pampanga, where the BOC and BIR seized 11,044 master cases of Mighty cigarettes worth P215 million in General Santos City and 62,200 master cases worth P1.98 billion in Pampanga.  SFM/rga

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