MANILA – Customs officers discovered an estimated PHP5 million worth of suspected smuggled agricultural products in three warehouses in Manila, the Bureau of Customs (BOC) reported on Wednesday. In a statement, Commissioner Bienvenido Rubio said agents from the Customs Intelligence and Investigation Service at the Manila International Container Port (CIIS-MICP) and the National Bureau of Investigation-Anti-Organized and Transnational Crime Division (NBI-AOTCD) implemented letters of authority (LOAs) in three warehouses in the districts of San Nicolas and Binondo on Tuesday. The inspection yielded hundreds of crates of vegetables and fruits. BOC-CIIS director Verne Enciso said the composite team found fresh imported broccoli worth around PHP2 million at the San Nicolas warehouse. Meanwhile, Customs officers also found fresh imported vegetables and fruits worth PHP2 million, which include bell pepper, garlic sprout, volcanic sweet potato, cauliflower, lotus root, corn, spinach, romaine lettuce, mushroom, oranges, strawberry, grapes, pear, melon, kiwi, apple, longgan, and cherry tomato, in a warehouse of WSH Trading on Sto. Cristo St. in Binondo district. Another warehouse on Elcano St. in Binondo also yielded cauliflower, yam, water bamboo, lotus root, spinach, tomato, baby cabbage, crown daisy and apple worth PHP1 million. “These were just the initial assessment of the value of these goods. There will be a thorough inventory and inspection of the goods found to determine the exact value, so we can file the appropriate cases against the owners of the warehouses and the companies and people behind these smuggling activities,” Rubio said. Customs examiners would hold an inventory of the goods to be witnessed by agents from CIIS and the respective warehouse representatives. He added that the owners of the warehouses will be given 15 days to present documents to prove that they are not storing smuggled commodities. If found without proper documents, the corresponding seizure and forfeiture proceedings will be conducted against the subject shipments for violation of Section 1400 (misdeclaration in goods declaration) in relation to Section 1113 (property subject to seizure and forfeiture) of Republic Act 10863 known as the Customs Modernization and Tariff Act (CMTA). The anti-smuggling operations came after local traders in Benguet province complained over an influx of smuggled vegetables which resulted in low local vegetable sales in the country, even during the holiday season.