P7.1-M worth of imported cigarettes seized in Zamboanga City

COTABATO CITY - The police seized in an offshore operation in Zamboanga City on Saturday night P7.1 million worth of imported cigarettes six boatmen were to deliver to Pagadian City from Sulu province.

In separate statements Monday, the Police Regional Office-9 and the office of the Bureau of Customs in Zamboanga City confirmed the confiscation of 203 large boxes of cigarettes with Indonesian brands on board a Jungkong, a traditional motorized watercraft, that policemen and BOC personnel intercepted while sailing near Barangay Manalipa, en route to Pagadian City.

Personnel of the 2^nd Zamboanga City Mobile Force Company and BOC agents involved in the operation immediately arrested the six men accompanying the illegal shipment for failing to present customs and tariff clearances for the merchandise they were to deliver to a contact in Pagadian City, the capital of Zamboanga del Sur.

The detained boat captain Sukrimar A. Jose, Kiram A.  Sali, Masaron H. Sahiron, Ayyub A. Abbas, Junie I. Alpa, and Peajay T. Milagrosa, are all residents of Pata town in Sulu, a component-province of the Bangsamoro region.

All six of them had confessed, during initial interrogation by the police, that the Indonesian-made cigarettes they were to deliver to Pagadian City came from a supplier based in a seaside area in the island province of Sulu.