Customs seizes smuggled soya bean oil worth P17M

Customs Commissioner Ruffy Biazon INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

The Bureau of Customs (BOC) has seized P17 million worth of smuggled soya bean oil from Malaysia, Customs Commissioner Ruffy Biazon said Thursday.

Biazon said in a statement that his men apprehended 15 twenty-footer container vans of Refined Bleached and Deodorized (RBD) soya bean oil worth $399,338.80 or P17.173 million misdeclared as Fraction of Unrefined Soya Bean Oil (F-RU) worth only $166,653.20 or P7.166 million.

Biazon said the consignee—Sea Probe Trading of Lipahan, San Juan, Batangas—tried to cash in on the cargo by declaring it as F-RU, a commodity with zero tariff under the Asean Free Trade Agreement (Afta), to avoid paying the 7 percent import duty rate for RBD soya bean oil.

“Sea Probe Trading did not only misdeclare and undervalue their soya bean oil shipment, they also faked the Afta certification supposedly issued by the Ministry of International Trade and Industry of Malaysia,” Biazon said.

“This old ‘modus’ in the Bureau of Customs is over. We have now strengthened our coordinative initiatives with our Asean counterparts. We can immediately detect this illegal practice,” he added.

BOC Enforcement Group Deputy Commissioner Horacio P. Suansing Jr. said he issued an alert order for the shipment after receiving information from Operations and Intelligence Office operatives at the Manila International Container Port. Philip C. Tubeza