Police seize 230 sacks of smuggled rice in Zamboanga City

ZAMBOANGA CITY - Police forces seized 230 sacks of smuggled rice during a sting operation in this southern port city on Thursday afternoon.

Senior Police Inspector Elmer Acuña, commander of the city  police's station 6, said the anti-smuggling operation was launched following an intelligence information that sacks of imported rice will be unloaded in a mini-wharf in the coastal village of Arena Blanco.

Acuña said police team led by Inspector Daniel Lozada swooped down on the wharf and apprehended a truck loaded with 230 sacks of rice (in 50 kilos each) about 3 a.m. Thursday.

He said the smuggled sacks of rice, owned by a certain Alonto Sawaki, were unloaded from M/V Rawda which came from Jolo, Sulu.

The operation against smuggling of rice came after former House Deputy Speaker and now Mayor Isabel Climaco-Salazar urged the Custom district office to intensify its campaign against rice smuggling citing her intelligence information about the rampant trade of smuggled rice in the city.

Acuña said the seized smuggled rice, with an estimated market value of more than P200,000, have been turned over to the Bureau of Customs (BoC) for proper disposition while the truck was temporarily impounded at the community police action center.