4,000 liters of diesel from Malaysia seized in Tawi-Tawi
TIMRA Reports • 15:45 PM Tue Jan 31, 2023
297
By:
John M. Unson
The vessel that was to bring smuggled diesel to Navotas City. (From PRO-BAR)
COTABATO CITY - Authorities foiled last weekend an attempt to smuggle 4,000 liters of diesel from Malaysia to Navotas City in the far north via Tawi-Tawi province.
Brig. Gen. John Guyguyon, director of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, said Tuesday the boat carrying the fuel, the M/V Marnia Penang, was immediately impounded by combined personnel of the Taganak Municipal Police Station, the Maritime Police and the 112th Marine Company of the 12th Marine Battalion.
Boat crewmen were about to transfer the 4,000 liters of diesel from a large container in the M/V Marnia Penang to a tanker-type watercraft, the Jaslyn Stacy, while both anchored near Lihiman Island in Taganak, Tawi-Tawi, when policemen and Marine personnel arrived to check, acting on tips from local residents.
All 29 crew members of both vessels were held for interrogation.
Rodrigo Sarol, Jaslyn Stacy’s captain, had told police investigators another vessel from nearby Malaysia was to arrive yet to supply them with 2,000 more liters of diesel bound for Navotas City, but returned when its captain was informed, via two-way radio, by the crew of M/V Marnia Penang about the anti-smuggling operation by local authorities.
Guyguyon said the two impounded vessels had been turned over to a unit of the Philippine Coast Guard in Tawi-Tawi, the southernmost province of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.