THE Department of Finance (DOF) has directed the bureaus of Customs (BOC) and Internal Revenue (BIR) to track down makers of counterfeit tobacco products and their cohorts in the government who helped let in the unlicensed cigarette-making machines into the country.
Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III has ordered Customs Commissioner Isidro S. Lapeña and BIR Commissioner Caesar R. Dulay to disable the confiscated machines used to make counterfeit tobacco products.
“I want to hit them with everything you’ve got, the Customs and the BIR, and get to the bottom of this,” Dominguez said during a recent Executive Committee meeting.
Dulay and Lapeña were also told to find out how the machines for manufacturing fake cigarettes, uncovered in recent operations in Luzon and Mindanao, were able to enter the country undetected by authorities.
The finance chief issued the directive after the BIR reported that its strike team had raided several warehouses storing smuggled and counterfeit cigarettes in Malabon and Manila, yielding a total of 531 master cases of fake and smuggled cigarettes bearing various brands.
BOC operatives had seized counterfeit cigarettes and bogus tax stamps worth P500 million in three warehouses in Bulacan.
“You better trace where these machines came from. Who are the people behind this? How did these machines get in?” he demanded to know.
The BIR strike team also seized four unlicensed cigarette-making machines, six cigarette-packing machines and a filter-making machine along with fake cigarette tax stamps inside the San Simon Industrial Park in Pampanga. The machines were reported to have been smuggled into the country.
Two factories in Cagayan de Oro City also yielded unregistered cigarette-making machines, packaging machines and a filter-making machine during recent operations also conducted by the BIR strike team.
The BIR informed Dominguez that “as instructed, the machines will be properly disabled to prevent their further usage.”
BOC Deputy Commissioner Edward James Dy Buco said the customs bureau “will have the entry of these machines investigated.”
The finance chief directed the BOC to find out from the country of origin of the machines how the units were allowed by that country for export, when these were most probably classified as “controlled items.”