Products of one of the most popular online gadget shops in the country, Kim Store, has been seized by the Bureau of Customs (BOC) on Monday, January 30.
According to a report by GMA News Online, agents of the Bureau of Customs (BOC) has seized products consisting of mobile phones, tablets, cameras, audio accessories, and other gadgets, which the bureau believed to be smuggled.
Online shop Kim Store, with a postal address on Lakandula Street in Tondo, Manila was selling imported gadgets, the bureau said in a statement on Wednesday.
"Among the items seized were units of iPhone 7 cellular phones, Macbook laptops, Samsung Galaxy S7 series phones, Nexus 6Ps phones, Zenfone 3 Ultra phones, Sony Xperia phones, Canon cameras, tablets and music players, audio accessories, and gadgets for safety and security," the BOC noted.
“There are plenty of cases wherein high-end communication and electronic gadgets are smuggled into the country through misdeclaration schemes – a top form of smuggling – used by smugglers to defraud and avoid paying correct duties and taxes to the government," Customs Intelligence and Investigation Service (CIIS) Director Neil L. Estrella said.
"Kim Store is owned by a certain ‘Francis’, a Filipino-Chinese businessman in Binondo, who is engaged in selling smuggled items online," the bureau said, citing an initial report submitted by Intelligence Officer Joel Pinawin, team leader of the CIIS operating unit, to Customs Commissioner Nicanor E. Faeldon.
The staff manning Kim Store’s depot failed to present documents for the imported items, the bureau noted.
“We are still validating some intelligence reports, and we will fully identify the real owners of Kim Store in the next few days,” Pinawin reported.
Kim Store was padlocked by the bureau, with the seized items inside the depot and guarded by CIIS agents.
“BOC, under my watch, will often conduct raids in warehouses, storehouses, and depots, to combat the malpractice and related crimes, and finally jail perpetrators, once and for all,” Faeldon said.
Source: GMA News TV, GMA News Online
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