Zamboanga City cops seize P43 million worth imported cigarettes

COTABATO CITY — A seaborne police team on Wednesday, June 18, foiled an attempt by smugglers to deliver P43 million worth of Indonesian cigarettes to contacts in Zamboanga City.

Local executives and officials of the Police Regional Office-9 told reporters on Friday, June 20, that the two large outrigger-type pumpboats carrying the contraband were intercepted by policemen while sailing around two miles off the Santa Cruz Island in the territorial waters of Zamboanga City.

Officials of the Zamboanga City Police Office and Brig. Gen. Roel Rodolfo, director of PRO-9, said the police teams involved in the anti-smuggling operation found 749 large boxes containing imported cigarettes, with different brands, in the two watercrafts.

The six crewmen of the two pumpboats, from a seaside town in Sulu province, were immediately detained. 

Officials of the Zamboanga City Police Office immediately turned over the confiscated cigarettes to the office of the Bureau of Customs in Region 9.

Rodolfo said he and his subordinate officers in police units in Zamboanga City are grateful to confidential informants supporting their continuing crackdown on smugglers delivering imported cigarettes from Indonesia to retailers in different areas in the city. 

Radio reports in Central Mindanao on Friday morning stated that different units of PRO-9 had seized no less than 10 tons of cigarettes with Indonesian brands in a series of anti-smuggling operations in the provinces of Zamboanga Sibugay, Zamboanga del Sur, Zamboanga del Norte and in the cities of Zamboanga, Dapitan, Dipolog and Pagadian in the past eight months.