BOC seizes SUVs, agri products in Cebu

Customs Commissioner Isidro Lapeña opens one of the 160 containers carrying undervalued sport utility vehicles held at Port of Cebu. — JUNJIE MENDOZA/CEBU DAILY NEWS

CEBU CITY—At least P160 million worth of smuggled items were seized by the Bureau of Customs (BOC) in Cebu after the agency was tipped off that these contained undeclared luxury vehicles, tiles and agricultural products from the United States, Japan and China.

Customs Commissioner Isidro Lapeña opened on Friday the 160 containers that were held at Port of Cebu from October to November this year.

“These (containers) arrived separately, on different vessels. But we were able to monitor their arrival based on the information coming from people within the bureau,” he told reporters.

Of these, 10 containers carried high-end sport utility vehicles (SUVs) from Japan and the United States, 70 contained agricultural products and 80 containers had tiles.

The SUVs and tiles were undervalued while the agricultural products were misdeclared, the BOC said.

Lapeña said the shipment’s documents showed that the vehicles cost only P1.5 million each when these were worth at least P4 million each.

The agricultural products were declared as apples. But when BOC personnel opened the boxes inside the containers, only three had apples while the rest had carrots and potatoes, which should have been taxed higher.

BOC records showed that the agricultural products were consigned to WSTAN and Company Inc., with office address in Manila.

It was the same consignee of five container vans seized by the BOC in October after its contents were misdeclared as apples. It turned out that these contained potatoes and carrots, worth more than P11 million.

Lapeña said the BOC had yet to establish if WSTAN was also the consignee of the vehicles and tiles.

Wivina Pumatong, BOC Cebu officer in charge, said the 160 containers arrived in Cebu in three batches.

The first batch, most of which contained tiles, arrived in the last week of October while the rest came in during the first two weeks of November.

She pegged the value of the agricultural products, which came from China, at P13 million. The 20 brand new SUVs, she said, were worth P80 million.

Pumatong said the containers carrying the tiles were worth P10,000 each.

“We will deepen the investigation and determine the consignee and other people behind this, including those within the bureau. We will file criminal charges against them,” Lapeña said, noting that smuggling was rampant in the cities of Cebu and Cagayan de Oro.

“We will catch up with them. Paliit nang paliit ang mundo nila (Their world is getting smaller),” Lapeña said.