DAVAO CITY — Bureau of Customs personnel at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) discovered P23.5-million worth of party drugs declared as coffee and kids toys in a parcel.
The BOC NAIA personnel uncovered and confiscated the seven (7) packages containing a total of 13,824 tablets of Ecstasy with an estimated street value of P23,500,800 at the Central Mail Exchange Center (CMEC) warehouse in Pasay City.
The illegal drugs were discovered in different parcels with different consignees.
Records show that the subject shipments originated from Netherlands and Belgium and misdeclared as “Caffe Gondoliere Espresso Beans, Caffe Gondoliere Creme Bonen”, “Gondoliere Coffee (Arabica)”, “Granulaat”, “Snoepjes”, “Coffee DE (Espresso)”, “DE Coffee (Aroma Red) (Mocca)”; and “Fishing Bath, Energy Saving LED Light, Pillow for Kids, Disney Pixar – The Secret Life of Pets”.
The suspicious weight of the packages, and the recently discovered modus operandi of smuggling illegal drugs through “coffee beans” from other countries last July 2020, prompted the agency personnel to subject more parcels to rigid document profilings, x-ray scanning, and inspections.
Upon physical examination by BoC-NAIA Customs Examiners, tablets in different colors of “Party Drugs “or Ecstacy concealed in “toys “ and different wrappers of “coffee” were found. Both Field Tests conducted by CAIDTF and PDEA Chemical Laboratory Test confirmed that the seized Tablets were Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) or also known as Ecstacy.
The BOC NAIA Frontliners, Customs Examiners, CIIS, CAIDTF, ESS, and XIP Operatives continuously coordinate with PDEA and NAIA-IATG to further strengthen vigilance in guarding passenger terminals and warehouses.
The seized illegal drugs were turned over to the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) for further profiling and case build-up against the importers and other personalities involved for possible prosecution for violation of the Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002 in relation to Section 1401 of the Customs Modernization and Tariff Act.-Newsline.ph
