BOC details 'elaborate method' of cheating government
At A Glance
- The Bureau of Customs (BOC) disclosed on Wednesday, November 12, the number of ways how erring customs personnel would connive with importers to defraud the government especially on the sale of luxury cars.
The Bureau of Customs (BOC) disclosed on Wednesday, November 12, the number of ways how erring customs personnel would connive with importers to defraud the government especially on the sale of luxury cars.
BOC Commissioner Ariel Nepomuceno revealed this “elaborate method of cheating the government” during the organizational meeting of the Senate Committee on Ways and Means, when Sen. Pia Cayetano inquired as to how the luxury cars of controversial contractors Curlee and Sarah Discaya were able to enter the country.
One method, Nepomuceno said is ensuring that the item/s do not have import entries and certificates of payment. He cited the case of a Bugatti car that the BOC suspected entered through the Batangas port.
“The import entry there is lodged through the IT system, although that can be erased later. That’s the modus we found out,” Nepomuceno told the Senate panel.
“And then the certificate of payment was supposed to be, if it’s Batangas, the form should have come from there. But the form was purchased from the Port of Davao. So there is really a scheme,” he said.
The BOC chief said it is evident that the certificate of payment is purchased from a different port to make tracing difficult especially if these luxury cars would be investigated.
Another method, he said, is the tampering of the X-ray images of the luxury car that is brought to the Philippines.
“The image is tampered so that would be the basis of the valuation so you will pay less. It’s an elaborate method of cheating the government,” he pointed out.
That is why out of the 30 luxury vehicles of the Discayas, the 17 that were bought from regular dealers could still not be released by the BOC.
“If these are from ill-gotten wealth, we will not release the 17 cars,” Nepomuceno said.
The BOC chief then assured Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian and Cayetano that they have already issued show cause orders against a number of BOC personnel and that the result of their internal probe will then be submitted to the Independent Commission for Infrastructure (ICI) for further investigation.