4 cigarette smugglers nabbed after road accident

COTABATO CITY — Four smugglers, two of them members of state law-enforcement outfits, landed in jail after their van full of cigarettes flipped and rolled over in General Santos City early Thursday, February 20, while being pursued by policemen.

A team of policemen first tried to stop the vehicle of the suspects only for a routine inspection at a gun ban checkpoint in Maasim town in Sarangani, but they sped away, prompting the chase that led to the accident in Barangay Apopong in General Santos City.

Senior officials of the Police Regional Office-12 and local executives had told reporters that policemen who pursued the four suspects found in their damaged van large boxes containing cigarettes made in Indonesia that they were to deliver to buyers in General Santos City.

Investigators estimated the value of the confiscated imported cigarettes to be at least P1 million.

Police investigators and barangay officials who responded to the accident had also discovered that the driver of the van carrying the contraband was an active member of a police highway patrol unit, residing in Tupi, South Cotabato. They have seized from him an unlicensed 9-millimeter pistol.

Local executives, who are also members of the multi-sector General Santos City Peace and Order Council, had told reporters that one of the three other detained smugglers had confessed to his being a member of the Philippine Coast Guard.

Police Brig. Gen. Arnold Ardiente, director of PRO-12, was reported by radio stations in General Santos City to have promised to work out the immediate prosecution in court of the four smugglers, now in their custody. 

Ardiente had also ordered the police units involved in the operation that led to their arrest to turn over the imported cigarettes confiscated from them to the Bureau of Customs for disposition.