NBI FILES RAPS VS SUSPECTED RICE HOARDERS|
MANILA, APRIL 18, 2008 (STAR) By Mike Frialde And Sandy Araneta - The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) filed yesterday criminal charges at the Department of Justice (DOJ) against five Chinese traders believed to be members of the “Mosquito Gang” which is allegedly involved in rice hoarding and price manipulation.Charged were Ting Ting Lee, Zeny Uy, Anna Marie Velasco Chua, Pan Ziqiang alias Dexter Pua, and Lita Dy Pua.
Lee and Uy were arrested in Barangay San Vicente in Ilagan, Isabela while Pan was arrested in Alicia, Isabela last Wednesday. Lita Pua and Chua remain at large.
The traders were charged before the DOJ Task Force on Anti-Hoarding, headed by Senior State Prosecutor Roberto Lao, for engaging in palay trading without authorization and license from the National Food Authority (NFA), violation of the signboard provision of the Revised Rules and Regulations on Grains Business, lack of a record book showing their grains transactions, and using unprescribed price tags.
The NBI had recovered 76 sacks of palay from the traders.
Government agents also found 8,200 bags of palay, 3,500 bags of rice and 500 bags of rice bran at Chua’s ricemill.
NBI Director Nestor Mantaring told reporters that the group violated the country’s anti-hoarding act as shown by the number of bags of palay in the suspects’ ricemill.
The suspects were tagged as members of the Mosquito Gang, a group of foreign businessmen involved in rice hoarding and manipulation of palay prices in Isabela, the second largest rice-producing province in the Philippines next to Nueva Ecija.
Investigators said the gang send agents to rice fields during harvest season to buy palay directly from the farmers at prices higher than other local traders.
The gangmen often win the bidding for the palay and thus they can control trading at the market.
There were reports that the price of palay in Isabela has increased in the past three days from P14.50 a kilo to P15.20 per kilo.
Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez directed the NBI to look into the possibility that the suspects are involved in grains smuggling to China or Taiwan where the grains are sold at higher prices.
Gonzalez added that the NBI is now closely coordinating with the Department of Agriculture in the gathering of information against rice hoarders and their cohorts within the agency.
“Charges of economic sabotage could be filed against those who are hoarding large quantity of rice. It is part of the investigation that the NBI is doing now,” Gonzalez said.
He said the NBI is also looking into the possible involvement of some NFA employees in rice hoarding.
Meanwhile, Customs Commissioner Napoleon Morales said the company that was caught smuggling agricultural products into the country has been blacklisted.
Morales said he has ordered all shipments of Rubills International Inc., consignee of the smuggled P31.7-million worth of wheat flour from China and the P18-million worth of sugar from Singapore, to be placed on hold.
“Since Rubills has been placed on our blacklist they would not be able to file their import entry and if they have other pending shipments, these would be placed on hold,” Morales said.
The Bureau of Customs forfeited in favor of the government last Wednesday the P31.7-million wheat flour of Rubills, after the bureau filed criminal charges against 11 Rubills officials before the DOJ last Tuesday.
“They (Rubills officials) misdeclared it so they don’t have to pay higher duties. If they declared it as sugar, then the consignee would have to pay 50 percent of the duties value of the shipment, but if it was soya beans then they would only pay 10 percent,” Commissioner Morales had said.
Sugar is also a regulated item and the consignee failed to secure an import permit from the Sugar Regulatory Authority (SRA). With Charlie Lagasca, Evelyn Macairan
Reported by: Sol Jose Vanzi
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