P64-M worth imported cigarettes seized by Navy in Tawi-Tawi

COTABATO CITY — A unit of the Philippine Navy on Saturday foiled an attempt by seafarers to deliver somewhere in Tawi-Tawi P64 million worth of cigarettes from Indonesia.

In separate reports on Sunday, the Naval Forces Western Mindanao (NFWM) and the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region stated that the watercraft carrying 2,000 boxes of cigarettes with Indonesian brands, the M/L Yasmen, was intercepted few miles off Manuk Mangkaw Island in Simunul, Tawi-Tawi by Navy personnel on a sea patrol.

The M/L Yasmen was impounded by the Navy unit in Tawi-Tawi, its cargo, P64 million worth of cigarettes made in Indonesia, was immediately turned over to the office of the Bureau of Customs in Bongao, capital town of Tawi-Tawi.

The commander of the NFWM, Rear Admiral Donn Anthony Miraflor, said that their personnel in Tawi-Tawi and in Sulu are working with local government units in both island provinces and with agencies under the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao and in Region 9 in addressing smuggling of cigarettes into southern provinces via BARMM’s territorial seas.

Two agencies under the Ministry of Transportation and Communications-BARMM, the Bangsamoro Ports Management Authority and the Bangsamoro Maritime Industry Authority, are actively supporting the anti-cigarette smuggling campaign of the police and the Navy, according to Brig. Allan Nobleza, director of PRO-BAR.

Units of PRO-BAR had seized P79 million worth of cigarettes in separate anti-smuggling operations in the six Bangsamoro provinces last year, assisted by the MoTC and provincial offices of the regional government’s Ministry of the Interior and Local Government and the Ministry of Trade, Investments and Tourism.

Miraflor and Nobleza separately on Saturday said that they are grateful to government agencies in the Bangsamoro region and in Administrative Region 9 for supporting their efforts to address smuggling into both regions of cigarettes from Indonesia by Filipino smugglers.