Police arrested a truck driver and seized P2 million worth of alleged smuggled cigarettes at a checkpoint in the village of Nagsabaran of Diadi town, Nueva Vizcaya on Saturday, October 25.
Capt. Marvin Deculing, chief of the Philippine National Police 1st Provincial Mobile Force Company in Nueva Vizcaya, said they arrested the driver, whose name was withheld due to data privacy, seized the smuggled cigarettes, and impounded the closed van used in the transport.
Seized were allegedly counterfeit or smuggled 53 boxes of ‘Bon International’ cigarettes, with each box containing 50 reams. Each ream has a street value of P800 or a total of P2.12 million.
The seized items were inventoried in the presence of municipal and provincial police officers and witnesses before they were turned over to the Diadi police station for safekeeping, Deculing said.
‘We have been doing a 24/7 checkpoint as we intensify an all-out war against smuggled items of all closed vans, so this is just one of the seized illegal items in the past,’ he said, adding that they spotted the cigarettes from a partially opened cart inside the van.
The driver, who failed to present transport documents will charge for violation of Anti-Agricultural Economic Sabotage Act