Fake BIR stamps found inside Pagadian warehouse

Fake BIR documentary stamps with the same serial number found inside the warehouse in Barangay Kawit, Pagadian City on May 23. —LEAH AGONOY

PAGADIAN CITY, Zamboanga del Sur –– Fake Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) documentary stamps with the same serial numbers were discovered inside the recently raided warehouse in Barangay Kawit here.

Lawyer Moises Tamayo, regional director of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) 9, said eight boxes of fake documentary stamps were found among the boxes of other cigarette-making raw materials in the warehouse.

Tamayo said they discovered the boxes during their initial inventory as they moved the confiscated materials to the truck after the raid.

Tamayo said the stamps had the same serial numbers, which was not supposed to be.

He estimated the stamps to be worth at least P64 million of unpaid taxes to the government.

“This is a big loss to the national government, an estimated P8-million for every box. This is tantamount to economic sabotage,” Tamayo said.

NBI Regional Director Lawyer Moises Tamayo (sitting) and his agent check on the contents of one of the boxes. —LEAH AGONOY

No one was arrested during the joint NBI and police raid in the warehouse on May 23.

“But we are backtracking and documentary tracing to identify those behind the ownership of the cigarette manufacturing raw materials, including the recently discovered BIR documentary stamps,” he said.

The discovery of the fake stamps would add on to the charges faced by the warehouse owner for violating Article 265 of the National Internal Revenue Code on the “possession of false, counterfeit, restored or altered stamps, labels or tags,” Tamayo said.

LZB