Cops seize P10.2 million worth of imported cigarettes in Sultan Kudarat

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — Policemen dispatched on Thursday, February 19, to check on a shooting incident in Barangay Aurelio Freires in Lebak town in Sultan Kudarat instead found P10.2 million worth of imported cigarettes piled at a secluded spot in the area.

Officials of the Sultan Kudarat Provincial Police Office and Brig. Gen. Arnold Ardiente, director of the Police Regional Office 12, separately told reporters on Saturday that the contraband was apparently for delivery then by couriers to buyers in different areas in Lebak and in nearby towns.

Two men watching over the 243 large boxes of cigarettes made in Indonesia, costing P10.2 million, immediately escaped when they noticed the policemen and barangay officials approaching their location in Purok Molave 1B in Barangay Aurelio Freires from two directions.

One of the two men was identified by villagers as Andaman Mamaluba, now subject of an extensive manhunt by personnel of the Lebak Municipal Police Station and the 2^nd Sultan Kudarat Provincial Mobile Force Company.

Mamaluba and his companion were reportedly waiting for a vehicle then to transport the cigarettes with Indonesian brands to their contacts in the municipality and in barangays in Kalamansig and Palimbang towns in Sultan Kudarat.

Ardiente has ordered the officials of the Lebak police force to turn over the seized smuggled cigarettes to the Bureau of Customs for its proper disposition.