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BIR seizes P100M worth of fake cigarettes in Iligan City


ILIGAN CITY —Bureau of Internal Revenue officials and police operatives seized last Thursday more than P100 million worth of "fake cigarettes."

Armed with a "mission order" from BIR Region 10 Office,  Intellectual Property Rights officials, with Iligan City police operatives, raided two houses being rented by a Chinese businessman in the city's Isabel Village in Barangay Palao.

During the raid, a middle-aged Filipino woman met authorities (introducing herself as the house cook), and a Chinese man named Wang Jian Min, who introduced himself as a cousin of the businessman who rented the house.

Alberto Daba, chief revenue officer of the Regional Investigation Division of BIR-10, said the operation was conducted following an intelligence report from Iligan City Police Office operatives that the house, which served as warehouse of a Chinese businessman, had fake cigarettes stored in it.

"It is fake because on the part of the BIR, the stamps are fake. Under the provisions of the national internal revenue code particularly section 265 of the Tax Code of 1997, it unlawfully possessed spurious internal revenue stamps and as penalized under the law," Daba said in a media interview.

One hundred master cases of Two Moon cigarettes were confiscated from the first house, with estimated market value of P25 million.

While an inventory was being done, the owner of the rented house, who requested not to be identified, arrived and led authorities to also check the other house beside the one targeted for the raid.

"The two houses are being rented by only one person, a Chinese businessman. I only knew his business is spare parts, I did not know he is also into selling of fake cigarettes," said the house owner.

In the second house, authorities found 387 master cases of various brands of cigarettes with an estimated market value of more than P75 million.

Daba said with the number of cases confiscated, the government lost P84 million in excise tax.

The cigarettes are now in the custody of BIR-10, and the Chinese man Wang is being held at the Iligan City Police Office while proper charges are prepared against him. —LBG, GMA News

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