LILA – Police visibility and vigilance have paid off. An attempt to smuggle petroleum fuels, costing about P7,000 for 750 liters of regular, unleaded and diesel, was busted here by a police team. A team of police officers has caught red handed a driver and a truck helper, who both tried to unload their cargoes of containers of fuels from a Petron-owned tanker and transferred them to another jeep-type vehicle, according to police record here. The apprehension of the duo, identified as one Giovanni Ocon, 58 of Cortes town said to be the driver of the tanker and his helper, Edwin Evangelista, 37, a resident of Catigbian, took place on March 11, 2011 at past 7 PM at an uninhabited quarry site of barangay Talingan, just about a kilometer away from town proper going to east, P02 Edwin Alimpulos said in an interview.

The supposedly recipient of the smuggle attempt was an owner of the jeep-type vehicle identified as Jose Iyog, Jr., 41, a resident of barangay San Isidro, Baclayon town, according to police investigator P02 Joseph Prada in a separate interview. Prada said that based on their probe, it was learned that the fuel tanker driven by Ocon was on its way to Tagbilaran City after delivering the fuel supply to Petron in Garcia-Hernandez and Valencia towns. Asked how the police knew there was a smuggling try, Alimpulos said P02 Joseph Montesclaros, who was on his way home to Dimiao, detected vehicles in the quarry site. He saw the vehicles and immediately turned back to the police station and immediately formed a team to stop the illegal act. The team of Montesclaros, P02 Julius Jimenez, P01 Rene Boquila and a certain P01 Zarlouel, lost no time and swooped down the area and caught “in flagrante” the suspects. The police held in custody the suspects but they have to release them since no immediate case was filed against them. Few days after, the police, together with the Petron operators, filed a case for estafa against the perpetrators. (RVO)