AN IMPORTER who had misdeclared a shipment of carrots as cartons of frozen pastry buns in 2020 has been found guilty of agricultural smuggling by a metropolitan trial court (MTC) and sentenced to a minimum of three years in prison.
“The case stems from an incident that occurred on June 26, 2020, when a shipment consigned to Real Mart arrived at the Port of Manila from Singapore. The consignee, owned by Ms. Divina Bisco Aguilar, declared the shipment to contain 2,500 cartons of frozen pastry buns. However, suspicions were raised when a derogatory report was received by the Port of Manila, prompting a physical examination of the shipment,” the Bureau of Customs (BoC) said in a statement released on Sunday. “Upon inspection… it contained misdeclared carrots, a clear violation of Customs regulations.”
On Sept. 8, the Metropolitan Trial Court National Judicial Capital Region Branch 24 found Ms. Aguilar “guilty beyond a reasonable doubt for violation of Section No. 1401 in relation to Sections No. 102 and 1400 of Republic Act No. 10863, commonly known as the Customs Modernization and Tariff Act.”
Separately, the BoC also filed two criminal complaints on goods from Korea that were not cleared by the Food and Drug Administration, as well as the export of a Current Transformer (CT) tester with falsified documents. — Luisa Maria Jacinta C. Jocson
