BOC sets up group to check sugar smuggling

MANILA, Philippines - Bureau of Customs (BOC) Commissioner Angelito Alvarez has formed a group, made up of their intelligence and enforcement officers, to monitor reports of sugar smuggling in the country.

The sugar smuggling, Alvarez said, “is one of the things that we are focusing on. We have been receiving reports about smuggling of sugar and that is why we formed a group.”

He said that he is pleased with the show of public confidence with the bureau and he assured them that they are verifying the reports of irregularities based on the information they received.

“We have been getting a lot of leads so we act based on the leads that we receive because as the saying goes ‘where there is smoke there is fire’,” Alvarez said.

He added, “We are looking at the angle that sugar is coming in from several ports, but we are concentrating on the port in Subic.”

The BOC Office of the Commissioner is still gathering information on the modus operandi of smuggling of the said commodity.

They have yet to determine the volume of sugar that is illegally being exported to the country.

He added, “I am asking the group to monitor the manifest of sugar importations so that we would know when they arrived and we would follow the trail and see the whole process.”

It was recently reported that the Department of Agriculture was investigating the alleged connection between smuggling activities within the sugar industry and the reported shortage of sugar supply.

These activities reportedly cause artificial shortage of sugar that might cause the price of the commodity to go up.

Earlier, the BOC on Friday seized some P20 million worth of fake cosmetic goods, cellular phones, designer bags and other electronic gadgets.

Customs deputy commissioner Horacio Suansing Jr. said the goods seized by the Customs Enforcement Group will be destroyed by steam-roller, or burning in violation of the Intellectual Property Code and the Tariff and Customs Code of the Philippines.

“Before destroying them, we will have to wait for the recommendation of the Department of Health on its mode of destruction because these are chemicals and we really don’t know what it contains,” Suansing, in his report to Alvarez, said.

The seized items, which were allegedly manufactured in China are Nivea, Pond’s, L’Oreal, Revlon, Mac and Jergens while the electronic gadgets were Ipod shuffle and MP3 players.

Aside from beauty and skin care products, the shipment was also loaded with pirated Quantum Pendants, Phiten and Power Balance bracelets, gold plated jewelries, PVC windows and Chanel women’s bags.

The consignee, Kornets International, abandoned the shipment since it failed to file an import entry.