BOC turns over rifle shipment to PNP

MANILA, Philippines - The Bureau of Customs (BOC) turned over an abandoned shipment of rifles and rifle parts to the Philippine National Police (PNP) yesterday.

The shipment, which arrived in the country on July 12, 2011, was consigned to the PNP through then Firearms and Explosives Division head Chief Superintendent Napoleon Estilles, according to BOC district collector Edgar Macabeo.

The shipment, sent by Colt Defense from Connecticut in the United States, was never claimed from the Pair Cargo warehouse near the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA). 

The shipment consisted of four infantry assault rifles and their cleaning kits, a carbine rifle and its cleaning kit, four buttstock and buffer assemblies and 30 magazines for 5.56mm rifles.

Macabeo said the shipment was declared as abandoned on Feb. 9, 2012 when the consignee failed to claim and work for the release of the shipment.

Macabeo turned the shipment over to PNP deputy chief for operations Deputy Director General Danilo Constantino at the BOC’s office at NAIA.

Estilles was dismissed from the police service in July along with PNP chief Director General Alan Purisima and several other officials for entering into an anomalous contract with a courier service for the delivery of gun licenses.

He was also charged in connection with 1,004 missing Kalashnikov assault rifles that turned up in the hands of communist rebels.