A RICE trader on Thursday denied the report by a Bureau of Customs (BOC) employee that his company and a popular supermarket chain allegedly benefited from the contents of some of the missing container vans.

Conrado Ibañez, president of Intercontinental Grains, denied the allegations of BOC Intelligence Division member Simeon Capparozo Jr. that part of the contents of the missing containers was delivered to Puregold Price Club Inc., a popular supermarket chain, through his company.

Ibañez said Capparozo approached him earlier this week to inquire if he supplies Thai rice to Puregold.

“I told him [Capparozo] that I supply rice not just to Puregold but to other supermarkets as well, like SM Hypermart, Savemore, Shopwise and Rustan’s,” Ibañez said.

He added that he was not arrested by the BOC intelligence officers last week.

Ibañez, who also supplies rice to Dusit Thani Hotel and the Embassy of Thailand, said he has all the necessary documents to prove that the Thai rice delivered to Puregold and to other supermarkets were all legitimately imported and not the contents of the missing containers.

Being the only licensed dealer of Golden Phoenix Thailand Rice in the country, Ibañez added that Intercontinental Grains has the necessary permits and documents from the BOC and National Food Authority to import rice.

Between January and May this year, some 1,910 container vans from the Port of Manila and Manila International Container Port (MICP) that were supposed to be transhipped at the Port of Batangas went missing.

Customs officials believed that the contents of the containers include rice, sugar and resins, all of which carry a high tax rate by as much as 40 percent.

The BOC raided last week a big warehouse in Caloocan City that yielded huge volumes of rice and sugar believed to be part of the cargo that went missing while being transshipped to the Port of Batangas.

At least P50 million worth of smuggled rice and sugar from Thailand were found being repacked by warehouse workers in small packages prior to delivery to big supermarkets and groceries.

The warehouse located at 63, C-3 Road, Dagat-Dagatan, Caloocan City is owned by Uni-Nexus Trading, which is a registered NFA Warehouse owned by a certain Sunny Angeles.

Ibañez said that he was just renting warehouse space at Uni-Nexus during the time of the BOC raid.

“I have a small company and it is wise just to rent warehouse space because my shipment is very small,” he explained.