Bulacan PNP traces extent of counterfeit operations

GUIGUINTO, BULACAN—The Bulacan police started conducting mopping-up operations at the warehouse in Bulacan that was raided by the joint elements of the police and local government unit for allegedly manufacturing counterfeit cigarette products.

The police also started tracing the extent of the operation of the syndicate and apparently hoping to locate the supplier behind the illegal operations.

This development came after the municipal government ordered the shutdown of a warehouse compound, which was also caught storing fake cosmetic products last year.

A government team on Thursday (Feb. 8) raided the property of Edward Wang at the RIS compound Barangay (village) Tabe and found cigarette manufacturing machines and packaging equipment being used by 70 workers allegedly recruited from Mindanao, said Mayor Ambrosio Cruz Jr., citing a report he received on Friday (Feb. 9).

The team led by the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group found Wang’s wife, Jacky, reportedly supervising the workers.

They recovered a still undetermined number of cigarette brands, boxes of counterfeit tax stamps, green and pink tax stamps, and boxes of filter papers.

In June last year, a team from the Bureau of Customs and the Food and Drug Administration discovered stockpiles of fake beauty and cosmetic products at the RIS Compound. /jpv