4 Chinese men nabbed for smuggling

COTABATO CITY — Law-enforcement agents clamped down on four Chinese nationals, selling imported insect repellants and pesticides, in an operation in Barangay Nueva Vida in M’lang, Cotabato on Monday.

The operation by combined personnel of the Bureau of Immigration (BI) and the National Bureau of Investigation-12 (NBI-12) that led to the arrest of the four Chinese nationals, was assisted by units of the Cotabato Provincial Police Office and the Army’s 6th Infantry Division.

Officials of the 602nd Infantry Brigade and the commander of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, Major Gen. Donald M. Gumiran, separately told reporters on Tuesday that the four Chinese men yielded peacefully when BI and NBI agents, soldiers and policemen arrived at their storehouse in Barangay Nueva Vida in M’lang to arrest them.

They had Chinese passports and working visas and permits to operate their establishment in M’lang, which sells smuggled insect repellents and pesticides to local buyers.

The four Chinese men are now in the joint custody of the BI and the NBI-12, according to local executives and barangay leaders in the municipality. — John Felix M. Unson