A seized Ferrari sports car was crushed into pieces along with several cigarette-making machines and fake cigarettes by the Bureau of Customs (BoC) Tuesday.
The seized second hand unit of Ferrari from Italy was destroyed after it was misdeclared as auto spare parts and abandoned by its importer at the Port of Manila since its arrival in May 2019.
According to Assistant Commissioner Vincent Maronilla, the Ferrari was shipped into the country by Camama Auto Hub with incomplete parts in an attempt to pave way for its swift release from the BoC.
He said the importer attempted to bring it into the country as a “semi-knockdown” vehicle but according to Customs rules, it won’t be classified as semi-knock down but a completely-built one.
“When they declared it as auto parts, they are trying to have to slip it through Customs as semi-knockdown. Ang semi-knockdown kasi may pintura na, walang pinto, walang hood, walang mga upuan pero may gulong na,” Maronilla explained.
“So they were trying to make it appear that it is semi-knockdown that they can declare it as used auto parts. However, it would not qualify as auto parts.They could have declared it as semi-knockdown,” he added.
The assistant commissioner furthered that they are suspecting that the missing parts of the Ferrari will be shipped by the importer through a separate shipment if prior importation was successful.
It was destroyed in line with the government’s firm stand on luxury car smuggling which aims to prevent smugglers from getting back their importation through public auction.
“There have been criticisms that these luxury vehicles should have been sold so that the government can still earn revenue but under our studies, mas malaki kasi ‘yung revenue impact sa ‘min if we make an example of luxury car importation,” Maronilla noted.
“We want to send a signal even if you want to bring it in with the usual scheme of getting it back through auction, you can no longer to do that. We want to make it unprofitable as possible for luxury vehicles, that is why the President issued that executive order instead of auctioning it off. We are destroying it because we feel that in the long run that would benefit more the Bureau of Customs and the industries that are legitimately engaged in the importation of luxury vehicles,” Maronilla added.
Meanwhile, twelve units of cigarette-making machines and more than 1,000 master cases of various brands of counterfeit cigarettes were also destroyed.
The fake cigarettes and imported cigarette-making machines were seized in February 2019 from a warehouse located in Barangay Bagacay, Tacloban City.
According to Maronilla, they brought the machines and fake cigarettes in Manila to emphasize that elicit cigarette activities like importation and manufacturing are not just limited in Luzon and National Capital Region.
“It’s actually very rampant also in the provinces, kasi may market e. They usually make cheaper versions. There’s actually a larger market of these items in the province so we wanted to highlight that even in the province of Tacloban, there are activities of illegal manufacturing of cigarettes. (Betheena Kae Unite)
