COTABATO CITY (Friday, September 5, 2025) — Policemen seized P15.7 million worth of imported cigarettes in an anti-smuggling operation in Barangay Central Panatan in Pigcawayan, Cotabato on Thursday, September 4.

The two van-type trucks carrying the cigarettes, produced in Indonesia, were intercepted at a stretch of a highway in Barangay Central Panatan by combined personnel of the Pigcawayan Municipal Police Station and the Regional Mobile Force Battalion 12, both under the Police Regional Office-12.

Police Brig. Gen. Arnold Ardiente, director of PRO-12, and local executives separately told reporters on Friday, September 5, that policemen found 400 large boxes of smuggled cigarettes in both 10-wheeler trucks, placed underneath sacks of charcoal as concealment.

The imported cigarettes were said to have come from a seaside town in Zamboanga Sibugay province in Region 9.

The drivers of both trucks and their helpers were supposed to deliver the illegal merchandise to buyers in different towns in Cotabato province, according to ranking members of the multi-sector Pigcawayan Municipal Peace and Order Council.

Ardiente said the successful anti-smuggling operation that led to the confiscation of the 400 boxes of cigarettes, worth P15.7 million, was based on reports by local officials and legitimate cigarette traders aware of its supposed distribution to buyers in Cotabato province.

The drivers of the two trucks and their four helpers were immediately detained for procedural interrogation.

All of them had promised to help the PRO-12 identify the traders behind the foiled smuggling attempt, according to local officials in Pigcawayan, one of the 17 towns in Cotabato province.

Ardiente said they are to turn over the confiscated imported cigarettes to the Bureau of Customs for its disposition.