THE Strike Force of the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR), in charge of fighting cigarette smuggling in the country, spearheaded the raid of several warehouses in Malabon and Manila City that yielded millions of pesos worth of smuggled and counterfeit cigarettes.
At least 43 master cases of Winston brand; 91 master cases of Mighty cigarettes; 82 master cases of Marvels brand; 11 master cases of Chunghua cigarettes; 71 mastercases of Two Moon brand; 37 mastercases of Fortune brand; and eight master cases of Marlboro brand were seized from two Malabon warehouses by the BIR’s special anti-illicit trade team late last week. Initial estimate showed the cigarettes were worth P8 million.
Meanwhile, the raid that took place in Tondo, Manila, last Friday headed by the BIR Strike Force yielded at least 31 master cases of assorted cigarettes, including Japan Tobacco International (JTI) brands bearing fake tax stamps.
Earlier, BIR Commissioner Caesar R. Dulay, recognizing the proliferation of counterfeit cigarettes in the country, formed the Strike Force in cooperation with the Bureau of Customs (BOC). This is also in response to the call of private tobacco firms operating in the Philippines to address the issues of cigarette smuggling in the country.
Dulay said the head of the strike team is BIR Regional Investigation Division Chief Remedios C. Advincula Jr., who is closely working with BOC Deputy Commissioner for the Assessment and Operations Coordinating Group (AOCG) Edward James A. Dy Buco.
“Frankly, we have a proliferation of smuggling. So we created a task force to address that. Our attention was called by big tobacco companies [like] Philip Morris [and] Japan Tobacco [International], that based on their investigation, there were a lot of instances of smuggling. As of now, there is a specific task force for tobacco. Eventually, we want to address all the issues,” Dulay said.
Representatives from brand owners JTI and PMFTC Inc. went to the site of the simultaneous raids to confirm that the cigarettes seized by the BIR Strike Force team and the BOC were counterfeit and with fake tax stamps.
JTI Philippines President and General Manager Manos Koukourakis said the continuing raids and enforcement action of the BIR Strike Force on secret warehouses and factories, is clear proof of the government’s sincere efforts to weed out syndicates denying collections of billions of pesos in revenues that could be used to improve social services and smoking education in the country.
“Smugglers rake more money when taxes are high and cigarette prices are also increased, which is a signal for them to start stockpiling their secret warehouses,” Koukourakis said.
Earlier this month, the anti-illicit trade unit of the BOC confiscated P18.5 million worth of smuggled cigarettes from China.
“Cigarette smuggling is an ever-growing and worsening reality, and kudos to the government for acknowledging its seriousness and going after it,” he added.
PMFTC had also earlier requested the BIR to seize the counterfeit Marlboro products discovered in the recent raids in Malabon City. In a letter sent to Dulay, lawyer Raul Academia, director of the Corporate Affairs-Illicit Trade Strategies and Prevention division of PMFTC, had pushed for the bureau to file appropriate cases against those found to be housing counterfeit tobacco products.