BOC FACTS AND FIGURES

October 18, 2012

P40-M Peking Ducks and Pigeons Seized

X-Ray scanners of the Bureau of Customs have foiled the smuggling thru the Port of Manila (POM) of some P40-million worth of Peking ducks and pigeons from China. Customs Commissioner Ruffy Biazon said the frozen delicacies which arrived in two forty-footer refrigerated vans last October 15 were misdeclared by Hexa Trading as frozen mackerel. Biazon explained that he had ordered the seizure of the unwelcome shipments because of the standing ban against the importation of fowl from countries with a long history of avian flu outbreaks. It was also made imperative by our agencys commitment to protect the local duck raising industry, especially during the ber months when demand for ducks and pigeons is historically at its peak, he added. The customs chief said he had a standing order to subject all incoming reefers to x-ray scanning to safeguard the interest of our local food producers who are always adversely affected by the entry of smuggled agricultural produce. Lawyer Lourdes Mangaoang, national head of BOCs X-Ray Inspection Project (X-IP), revealed that in keeping with an age-long smugglers trick, Hexa Trading tried to pass off the contraband in one of the containers as frozen fish by stuffing the pigeons in boxes with mackerel markings. In the other container, the same consignee tried to hoodwink our personnel by keeping the pigeons and Peking ducks in the middle and inner sections of the reefer van and using a small number of mackerel boxes stacked from the flatbed up as tools of concealment, she added. The deception did not work, claimed Biazon, because we now have the technology to detect and expose every dirty trick in the smugglers book. The customs chief expressed hope that this latest seizure would help smugglers realize that there was nothing they could hide from BOCs state-of-the art cargo x-ray scanners. Our x-ray machines can pierce thru 18 inches of metal and are thus three times more powerful than the ones being used in the United States, he added. Biazon lauded Mangaong and her team for the twin seizures which came on the heels of their other high-profile confiscations involving motor vehicles, computer hardware and software, other agricultural produce and an assortment of counterfeit products. Biazon said he wanted all the culprits in these smuggling attempts to be criminally prosecuted.

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