BOC-Zambo destroys P183-M smuggled cigarettes

The Bureau of Customs (BOC)-Zamboanga District Office led the destruction Monday of some PHP183 million worth of smuggled cigarettes in this city.

Segundo Sigmundfreud Barte Jr., BOC-Zamboanga district collector, said the assorted cigarettes were seized in separate anti-smuggling operations since September this year in the region and in the Basilan, Sulu, and Tawi-Tawi (BaSulTa) provinces.

More than 5,200 master cases of cigarettes were scattered on an outdoor yard of a warehouse in Barangay Baliwasan, this city and drenched with water by firemen and crushed with the use of a backhoe.

The destroyed cigarettes were later transported and disposed in the city’s sanitary landfill in Barangay Salaan. Barte said that the aggressive anti-smuggling campaign, as well as the immediate destruction and disposal of the contraband, was a firm directive from BOC Commissioner Rey Leonardo Guerrero.

https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1124010