Customs confiscates $29.3-M worth of smuggled rice from Vietnam

MANILA, Philippines (Xinhua) - The Bureau of Customs (BOC) has recently seized smuggled rice worth P1.2 billion (about $29.3 million) from Vietnam, a senior government official said here today.

Customs Commissioner Rozzano Rufino Biazon said that his office issued alert orders on 1,000 20-footer container vans of smuggled rice, which arrived at the port of Cebu on separate occasions recently.

The rice shipments from Vietnam, which were consigned to nine different consignees, were mis-declared as stone slabs, granite slabs and cooling insulators and did not have the required import permits from the state-run National Food Authority (NFA), he said.

"This big rice haul in Cebu is the result of our tightened watch and intelligence work in the BOC's various ports," Biazon added.

The Philippine government has stepped up its campaign against smuggling to raise more revenues. For the past 17 months, the BOC has already filed 127 smuggling cases against some individuals and companies to the Department of Justice.