P439,167 worth of imported cigarettes seized from 3 storeowners
COTABATO CITY - The police confiscated P439,167 worth of smuggled cigarettes from three storeowners who fell in separate entrapment operations in Ipil, Zamboanga Sibugay Saturday.
Lt. Col. Cyrus Belarmino of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group-9 said Sunday the suspects, Ebelini Muhammad Marusi, 40, Armand Akuk Sahid, 21, and the 51-year-old Jerry Jul Allani, are now detained.
They were arrested one after another in stings in three different barangays in Ipil, capital town of Zamboanga Sibugay.
Belarmino, who is overseeing the Regional Special Operations Team of CIDG-9, said Maruji, Sahid, and Allani were arrested after selling cigarettes with Indonesian brands to buyers who helped entrap them.
They failed to show CIDG agents customs and tariff clearances for their merchandise.
Belarmino said Marusi, Sahid and Allani, now clamped down in a detention facility of CIDG-9, shall be prosecuted for violation of the Republic Acts 10643 and 8424.
The RA 10643 outlawed selling of cigarettes in the country without health hazard warnings on individual packs while the RA 8424 prohibits untaxed sale of consumer goods by merchandisers.
Belarmino said they seized from Marusi P267,400 worth of cigarettes made in Indonesia.
Sahid yielded P128,800 worth of cigarettes to the team that entrapped him.
CIDG agents placed at no less than P42,700 the value of the imported cigarettes confiscated from Allani.
Cigarettes of different brands from Indonesia have been flooding towns and cities in the Zamboanga peninsula and provinces in central Mindanao since 2018, supplied by smugglers in Sulu and in Tawi-Tawi provinces in the Bangsamoro region.