THE Bureau of Customs (BOC) last week filed technical smuggling charges against an importer and its customs broker for undervaluing shipments of heavy equipment excavators.
Charged before the Department of Justice was Jesus del Mundo Pangilinan, proprietor of Kingpoll Marketing, and customs broker Brix Evale.
“Pangilinan and Evale made it appear through the use of spurious invoices that the 12 heavy equipment excavators (the company) imported had a dutiable value of only P7,939,098 and subsequently paid customs duties and value-added tax amounting to only P1,076,547.00,” Customs commissioner Angelito Alvarez said.
Each of Kingpoll’s shipments was later found to have an actual dutiable value of P8.35 million or P86.08 million for all 12 excavators.
The shipments from Volvo East Asia Pte Ltd South Korea arrived on October 8 at the Port of Manila on board the MV Wan Sheng.
Alvarez said BOC’s Run After the Smugglers team suspected Kingpoll was undervaluing its shipments since the Wan Sheng carried the same type of excavators for another consignee.
“A comparison of the import entry declarations submitted by Kingpoll and those of the other consignee, the Rio Tuba Mining Corp, revealed gaping discrepancies that ran into tens of millions of pesos,” he said.
The equipment are in the Kingpoll showroom. A warrant of seizure and detention will be issued on them soon.
