There are no active military personnel involved in the reported smuggling into the country of around $370 million (R18.78 billion) by two crime syndicates, but raw information indicate that retired soldiers and cops might have acted as escorts to enable the entry of the dirty money, the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) spokesperson bared Wednesday.
Brigadier General Edgard Arevalo, AFP spokesperson, said this was the result of the initial investigation conducted by the military on the issue of alleged smuggling of dirty foreign money by the crime syndicates as reported by the Department of Finance (DoF) and Bureau of Customs (BoC).
“Tumawag tayo sa DoF at BoC. Ang binabanggit nila, hindi nila categorically sinabi na miyembro ng AFP ‘yung sumasalubong sa sinasabing may dalang mga dolyar,” Arevalo said in the Kapihan sa Manila Bay news forum.
The military spokesman said the BoC and DoF were reviewing the footages of closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras they obtained to verify the identities of the escorts.
“But offhand, their raw information is itong mga sumasalubong na ito ay retired members of the PNP [Philippine National Police] and AFP that are now under the [employment] of security agencies,” he explained.
Early this week, a DoF report quoted Customs Commissioner Rey Leonardo Guerrero as saying that “Chinese” and “Rodriguez” crime syndicates managed to sneak into the Philippines some $370 million dollars.
The Chinese syndicate allegedly smuggled $167.97 million between December 2019 to January 2020 while Rodriguez brought theirs between July 2019 to January 2020, according to Guerrero, who is also a retired Army general.
In the report, Guerrero was quoted that some travelers, acting as couriers, were bringing in the cash stuffed in luggages upon their arrival at the airports. (Martin Sadongdong)