![\"Division](\"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/smuggled-7.jpg\")
<\/a>Larson commended the personnel that intercepted the illegal powdered pesticides and other undeclared items.<\/p>\n
Illegal pesticides\u2014which have non-English labels and are unauthorized to be imported to the CNMI\u2014were not the only ones discovered. A total of 120 bottles of hard liquor that were declared only as cooking wine, which would have been assessed a lower tax, were also found, said Customs seaport manager Greg Sablan.<\/p>\n
Customs director Joe Mafnas identified the importer as Yin Jia Corp.<\/p>\n
As a result of these interceptions, Mafnas said that Customs would be implementing a policy wherein importers will be required to not only give a business name but a physical address, a business license, and business gross revenue tax filings, among other things, to determine whether the importer is in business rather than just a front for illegal activities.<\/p>\n
In this particular case, Mafnas said that Yin Jia Corp.\u2019s representative, identified as Dong Gui Li, operates Green Consume stores on Middle Road and As Lito.<\/p>\n
Mafnas questioned why the importer had to use another business name rather than Green Consume, which is a known store on island.
\nAlso at the news briefing was Division of Quarantine inspector Mark Pangelinan.<\/p>\n
\u2018Odd\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n Customs inspector Don F. Teregeyo, 23, was assigned to inspect a 20-ft.container from China at the seaport on April 30, and he was the one who discovered the smuggled items, along with customs inspector Lt. Ray Renguul.<\/p>\n Teregeyo is a WIA intern with Customs for only a few months, and this is his second interception of illegal items in just a few weeks\u2019 span; the first one was the discovery of some 40 pieces of counterfeit Burberry, Coach, and Lacoste women\u2019s wallets and purses.<\/p>\n In an interview at the customs seaport, Teregeyo said he found it \u201codd\u201d that an importer would bring in a plastic container along with other merchandise in a 20-ft. container. Teregeyo was among the 11 that recently completed the second cycle of basic customs training.<\/p>\n He said the moment he opened the 5-gallon container, a pungent odor came out of it. He saw what he thought was pickled leafy vegetables.<\/p>\n Teregeyo said the importer\u2019s representative, identified by the Customs director as Dong Gui Li, told him it was just a container of pickled vegetable.<\/p>\n \u201cShe told us it\u2019s food and to prove to us, she ate some of it,\u201d Teregeyo told Saipan Tribune. But he said he wasn\u2019t convinced so he reached into the pickled vegetables with his gloved hands and pulled packets or sachets with non-English labels. The initial assessment was that they were illegal pesticides.<\/p>\n Customs and Quarantine also called in the Bureau of Environmental and Coastal Quality, and the latter confirmed they were pesticides that are not supposed to enter the CNMI.<\/p>\n As to any criminal case, Customs said this is beyond the division\u2019s jurisdiction. It\u2019s not known whether the CNMI government\u2014or at least the Office of the Attorney General or BECQ\u2014would pursue criminal charges against the importer.<\/p>\n Larson said the manner in which the pesticides were smuggled put the health and safety of inspectors at risk. Moreover, she said importers that try to smuggle items into the CNMI are hurting the economy.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re taking this seriously,\u201d she said, adding that Customs continues to assess the 20-ft container.<\/p>\n Mafnas said it has come to Customs\u2019 attention that illegal pesticides are a \u201chot item\u201d on the island, especially among farmers.<\/p>\n He said Customs earlier intercepted a small bottle of pesticide worth $75.<\/p>\n Hard liquor<\/strong><\/p>\n Customs\u2019 Sablan said they also found in the 20-ft container 10 cases of hard liquor that were initially declared as cooking wine. They later found out that they contained 55 percent alcohol, and are considered hard liquor that would make them eligible for a higher tax rate.<\/p>\n Each case contains 10 bottles of hard liquor.<\/p>\n Mafnas said Customs imposed a penalty of $3,000 on the importer, Yin Jia Corp. Customs also has yet to assess the proper tax for the hard liquor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Hundreds of packets of illegal pesticides from China were smuggled into the CNMI, concealed inside…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":34532,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[56,169,26,55],"class_list":["post-34521","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-business-3","tag-china","tag-cnmi","tag-health-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34521","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/35"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34521"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34521\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}