Customs seizes P50M worth of misdeclared goods

DAVAO. District Collector lawyer Romalino Valdez and Customs Commissioner Isidro Lapeña inspects shipments declared to contain apples but actually contain onions inside. (Mark Perandos)
DAVAO. District Collector lawyer Romalino Valdez and Customs Commissioner Isidro Lapeña inspects shipments declared to contain apples but actually contain onions inside. (Mark Perandos)

FOUR different shipments of misdeclared goods amounting to at least P50 million had been seized in the Port of Davao and was opened Friday, May 25, at the Bureau of Customs (BOC) Davao.

According to Customs Commissioner Isidro Lapeña, consignee Janrev Enterprises declared their shipments to contain different types of plastic wares but actually contains 401 cartons of Snowbear candies and 869 cartons of mosquito coil.

“These Snowbear candies, when checked by the examiners, were made in Pasig City. But the containers came from China. So we do not know yet how this happened. But still it was not declared. What we fear here is that, aside from the fact that it might be fake, it might contain something else. So we were requesting Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) to have it examined also,” said Lapeña adding that the mosquito coil items all have the same barcodes and are also confirmed to be fake.

Consignee Bizreal Trading International declared to have shipments containing apples however beyond the first few layers of apple cartons are 6,300 sacks of onions.

According to Lapeña, apples are being used as “camouflage” to cover up onions and other items as apples are tax-free and are almost the same size as the onions. However, Lapeña said, the x-ray machines were still able to detect that not the entire container had apples inside.

Both the shipments of Bizreal Trading International and Janrev Enterprises arrived at Sasa Wharf, Davao City just this month.

In the Davao International Container Terminal (DICT), Panabo City, two shipments containing misdeclared goods were also inspected. Both Mahmud Enterprises and Kobesean Trading declared their shipments to contain bedsheets, shoes, pillowcases, stuffed toys, and bags when they actually contained bundles of ukay-ukay clothes, 275 boxes of magic sugar, and 115 boxes of lotion.

All the confiscated items will be destroyed and the consignees will be filed with appropriate cases after the investigation had been completed.

Abandoned rice at the port

Aside from these four shipments in Davao City and Panabo City containing misdeclared goods, District Collector lawyer Romalino Valdez also said that 14 20-footer containers of rice from Vietnam were abandoned in the port since arriving last February.

“The consignee of this rice is the Pilipinas Agro. They do not have the importation permit that the customs is asking from them. When it was not issued and they weren’t able to present, they just abandoned their products here. Now, it’s the property of the government already,” said Valdez.

Lapeña added that the P50 million total amount only covers the misdeclared goods of the four shipments and not yet of the abandoned rice. He said the National Food Authority will be the one to determine the amount as it might still undergo auction.

“The mode of disposal for rice will be determined because the mode of disposal could be auctioned or donated or destructed,” said Lapeña.

“What we are doing now is actually doing things right. I would like to appeal to our businessmen importers to go by the correct valuation and do it legitimately because whatever duties and taxes will benefit the Filipino people and this will go to the programs of the government,” he added.

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