NAIA confiscates French national’s undeclared cash

A 58-year-old French expatriate got some P165,000 in cold cash he had with him upon arrival at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) Terminal 1 confiscated for non-declaration of the money with airport Customs authorities.

Bernard Le Gall, a French national who has a house in Bohol province, had arrived yesterday afternoon from a trip to Bangkok, Thailand via Thai Airways flight TG 620 which landed at the NAIA at around 1:50 p.m. when he passed through a Customs lane. Unfortunately for Le Gall, he failed to declare that he had Philippine currency exceeding P10,000 with him in his body upon passing through the Customs lane. A subsequent thorough frisking and check of his pockets and bags, however, yielded the said amount of pesos in his possession along with some other amount in foreign currency but in smaller amounts.

Airport Customs officers, now implementing an anti-money laundering regulation of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas which mandates an inbound passenger from declaring local and foreign currency exceeding the amount of P10,000 and $10,000 in foreign currency, immediately seized the money from Le Gall.

The confiscation of Le Gall’s money is the latest of a recent string of seizures conducted by the BoC-NAIA under their current campaign to enforce the BSP anti-money laundering regulation.

It will be recalled that officers of international airlines and their allied travel groups had aired concerns over the enforcement of the BSP regulation saying that it could turn away moneyed tourists from visiting the Philippines.