BOC cracks down on transshipment operators

MANILA, Philippines - The Bureau of Customs (BOC) will embark on a massive crackdown on companies doing transshipment operations following the agency’s discovery of unaccounted transshipped containers which were supposed to have arrived at the Port of Batangas, Customs Commissioner Angelito Alvarez told The STAR.

He said that between January and May 2011, a total of 2,217 containers covered by transshipment permits were processed at both the Manila International Container Port and the Port of Manila by three importers.

These are LCN Trading, Sea Eagle Trading and Marcelion Enterprises. The estimated duties and taxes to be collected on these shipments amounted to P102.6 million.

However, the Port of Batangas reported that only 309 containers arrived and that duties and taxes collected on the shipments amounted to only P14.6 million.

As such, Alvarez said 1908 containers still have to be accounted for.

 “Unpaid duties and taxes amounted to P88 million, based on transshipment entry declarations,” Alvarez said.

The Customs chief said that following the fraudulent transshipment that transpired between January and May 2011 between Manila and the Port of Batangas, the agency would now be including transshipment operations in the smuggling cases regularly filed by Customs with the Department of Justice (DOJ).

“The cases we have filed cover all forms of smuggling except for transshipment operations. As a result, I challenged the Run After Tax Evaders (RATS) under Deputy Commissioner Gregory Chavez to profile companies doing transshipment operations.”

So far, the BOC has already filed 39 smuggling cases before the Department of Justice with total claim of over P53 billion.

Alvarez said the BOC will exhaust all means to get to the bottom of the “mess” and that all guilty parties will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

“We will also strengthen the control measures to ensure that situations like these do not ever happen again,” Alvarez said.

The agency is tasked to collect P320 billion this year, higher than last year’s P280 billion.