NBI, officials from Mighty Corp hunting fake cigarette suppliers
Agents of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) have arrested two suspects for supplying fake Mighty Corp cigarettes to a sari-sari store in Bocaue, Bulacan.
The suspects, Guillermo B. Ediesca and Jonathan E. Jimenez, were arrested for selling counterfeit Mighty Full Flavor and Menthol 100’s soft pack variants on a complaint filed by Mighty Corp., a Filipino-owned cigarette manufacturer.
Among the discrepancies confirmed by Mighty were the cigarette quality and the print packaging such as misspelling of the word “Manufactured” to “Manufacture” and the absence of a manufacturing code on the packs, among others.
Retired Judge Oscar P. Barrientos, Mighty Executive Vice President, said the fake cigarettes seized in Bulacan also alarmingly contained counterfeit BIR tax stamps.
Mighty has launched a relentless campaign against unscrupulous traders faking their brands and using bogus stamps in coordination with the NBI and the Bureau of Internal Revenue.
Last April 26, NBI-Bulacan District Office (BULDO) agents led by AIC Arnel Dalumpines conducted a buy-bust operation in a sari-sari store regularly supplied by the suspects in Bocaue, Bulacan.
Ediesca and Jimenez were immediately arrested by NBI agents after receiving marked money for their delivery of eleven rims of fake Mighty cigarettes.
The NBI filed charges against the two for violating Republic Act 8293 or the Trademark Infringement and Unfair Competition Law before the Provincial Prosecutors’ Office in Malolos, Bulacan.
Earlier, the NBI also arrested three suspects for selling several cartons of fake Mighty cigarettes of the same variants in Cebu City.
