P1.9-M smuggled cigarettes seized from BARMM cop

COTABATO CITY — Policemen early on Thursday foiled an attempt by a police staff sergeant and an accomplice to deliver P1.9 million worth of cigarettes from Indonesia to their contacts in Marawi City.

The policeman and his male cohort were together in a white Toyota Hi-Ace van and fully loaded with Indonesia-made cigarettes, when they were intercepted by police anti-smuggling operatives at a checkpoint along a stretch of a highway in the seaside Malabang town in Lanao del Sur.

The now detained policeman belongs to a unit in Malabang of the Lanao del Sur Provincial Police Office.

Brig. Gen. Jaysen C. De Guzman, director of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region (PRO-BAR), told reporters on Thursday morning that combined personnel of different PRO-BAR units flagged down the vehicle of the duo only for a routine inspection, but immediately held them when they discovered that it was fully loaded with boxes containing Indonesian-made cigarettes.

Mr. De Guzman said the police staff sergeant and his companion are now both locked in a detention facility, awaiting prosecution in court.

“We shall prosecute him for smuggling of cigarettes and file a separate administrative case against him so he would be terminated from the police service. We do not tolerate abuses by our personnel in all areas in the Bangsamoro region,” Mr. De Guzman said.

Mr. De Guzman said they will turn over to the confiscated smuggled cigarettes for proper disposition to the Bureau of Customs. — John Felix M. Unson