Bulacan raid yields more fake stamps

The Bureau of Customs (BOC) seized P3.2 billion worth of cigarettes with fake tax stamps in a raid on Friday on two warehouses operated by Mighty Corp. in San Ildefonso, Bulacan province.

Recovered were 160,000 master cases of Mighty cigarettes stored in the company’s warehouses in Barangay Matimbubong.

“Using the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) stamp verifier, the team confirmed that the cigarettes had been marked with fake tax stamps,” the BOC said in a statement.

A BOC team led by Joenel Pogoy conducted the raid, in coordination with the BIR,  barangay officials and the police, it said.

The operation, personally led by Customs Commissioner Nicanor Faeldon, was carried out following a tip that cigarettes with fake  tax stamps were stored in the warehouses.

The first warehouse yielded 145,000 master cases of cigarettes worth P2.9 billion, while the second warehouse had 15,000 master cases worth around P300 million.

The BOC said Friday’s raid yielded a larger volume of cigarettes than the earlier raid in San Simon, Pampanga province.

The raid came after the expiration of a 20-day temporary restraining order issued by Judge Tita Bughao Alisuag of Manila Regional Trial Court Branch 1 against the BOC’s raid and inspections on Mighty Corp.’s warehouses.

The BIR  has filed charges against Mighty Corp. for allegedly evading payment of around P9.6 billion in excise taxes by using fake cigarette tax stamps.

Mighty Corp’s lawyer, Sigfrid Fortun, protested the raids, saying the customs bureau had no authority to inspect excise stamp taxes as it was exclusively vested in the revenue bureau.

“As no fake imported goods or smuggled cigarettes were found inside the warehouse, any action the BOC may take on them will be legally infirm,” he said.

Faeldon said the BOC would step up its campaign against smuggling and all other forms of illicit trade by investigating companies, including those in the oil and motor vehicle trade.

Pogoy ran the cigarette boxes through a tax stamp verifier and found that the stamps glued to the boxes were fake.

Each master case contained 500 packs of cigarettes. A P30 excise tax would have been collected from each pack, which meant that all 80 million packs represented P2.4 billion in unpaid excise taxes.

The BOC padlocked the warehouses pending the filing of a complaint against the cigarette manufacturer based in the City of Malolos in nearby Bulacan province.

Rosalinda Manzon, Matimbubong village chair, said she did not know who owned the warehouses and said the buildings were known to villagers as being used as “a badminton court where they see people playing and partying.”

Three representatives of Mighty Corp. were present during the raid but they declined to issue any statement.  —WITH REPORTS FROM TONETTE OREJAS AND CARMELA REYES-ESTROPE