Cigarettes found inside abandoned box thought to contain bomb

Marlboro cigarettes. AP FILE PHOTO

BACOLOD CITY, Philippines — A box thought to contain a bomb when two K-9 units stopped beside it at a restaurant in Ayala District Northpoint in Talisay City, turned out to contain Marlboro cigarettes only.

Senior Superintendent Milko Lirazan, Negros Occidental police director, said a K-9 unit deployed by the security force of the mall stopped near a box found behind the Terasse Bistro, after a brownout Saturday evening, and refused to leave.

The mall’s security called the police at around 7:30 p.m. Saturday, and asked the restaurant’s customers to leave the area, he added.

When the Explosive and Ordnance Disposal Team of the Philippine Army arrived, their K-9 unit also stopped beside the box, Lirazan said.

When explosives experts opened the box, they found Malboro blacks cigarettes, he said.

The police investigators believed the box could have been stolen from the mall’s grocery store during the brownout.

“It is possible that the cigarettes or the box had traces of nitrate, misleading the K-9 [units],” Lirazan said.