Hong Kong national a person of interest in shabu shipment

MANILA, Philippines — A Hong Kong man tagged as the local mastermind in a P6.8-billion illegal drug shipment is now the focus of investigation by the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency.

PDEA chief Aaron Aquino said they are looking into the identity of a certain “Andy Cheng,” who was identified as behind the controversial shipment believed to have slipped through the Bureau of Customs and made its way to a warehouse in General Mariano Alvarez in Cavite. 

Cheng was supposedly identified by one of the persons of interest in the Cavite shipment case recently arrested by the PDEA.

James Kung reportedly pointed to Cheng after he was arrested with a kilo of shabu during a drug sting near the Rizal Coliseum in Manila recently. 

Aquino said they are trying to get hold of Cheng and establish if he has links with the group of Customs intelligence officer Jimmy Guban. 

Guban, PDEA’s former no. 2 man Ismael Fajardo and dismissed Senior Superintendent Eduardo Acierto have been implicated as part of the group that facilitated the shabu shipment. 

Fajardo, who was relieved from his post as PDEA deputy director general for administration, was part of the group, along with Acierto and Guban, that conducted initial investigation on the shabu shipment.

It was later found that Guban and Acierto knew and even facilitated the shipment supposedly containing a ton of shabu, which is now missing, Aquino said. 

Officials said four policemen were also implicated in the illicit shipment.

The supposed P6.8-billion shabu shipment is now the focus of inquiries by various law enforcement agencies and Congress after it allegedly passed through the Bureau of Customs.

Four empty magnetic lifters, similar to those used to ship 355 kilos of shabu worth P2.4 billion at the Port of Manila, were seized at the Cavite warehouse and was said to have contained a ton of shabu. 

Corrupt Customs officials and erring personnel of other agencies made the huge drug shipments possible, Sen. Richard Gordon said.

“We are under intense siege by the international drug syndicates. Other countries are experiencing it too. They use technology and exploit our weaknesses, loopholes in our system, and chinks in our armor, and exploit the poverty of our people,” Gordon said.

Gordon is leading the congressional inquiry over the P6.8 billion worth of shabu contained in four scrap magnetic lifters seized in a warehouse in Cavite last August.

He cited the case of the P6.4 billion worth of shabu contained in large steel cylinders that slipped through the BOC in May 2017. The cylinders were recovered by operatives of the Customs Intelligence and Investigation Service later that month in a warehouse in Valenzuela City.

Gordon reported the seizure of several hundred kilos of shabu seized by the National Bureau of Investigation in various raids in San Juan City in late 2016 worth anywhere between P6 billion to P9 billion. The drugs also slipped past Customs.

In a separate interview with dzBB, Gordon said the international drug syndicates — mostly run by Chinese with meth labs in the shared borders of Thailand, Myanmar and Laos — have resorted to smuggling shabu as most of their clandestine labs in the country have been dismantled.

“It’s cheaper now for them to just smuggle tons (of shabu). It may be riskier for them but if it slips through, many profit from it,” Gordon said.

He said despite the smuggling, he still believes in the integrity of BOC Commissioner Isidro Lapeña, whose agency needs the support as well as vigilance from the public.

Gordon said the BOC must acquire the latest equipment to detect drugs and other contraband passing through various ports in the country as well as updated training of its personnel.

“We are fighting a new war and we have to have new weapons,” he said.

During the hearing last week, Gordon came to the conclusion that the four empty scrap magnetic lifters in Cavite had contained shabu—possibly at least a ton, according to PDEA.

BOC officials maintained the four magnetic lifters passed through x-ray machines and their operators did not see anything suspicious. The assertion however was disputed by Customs Deputy Collector for passenger service Ma. Lourdes Mangaoang.

Lapeña disclosed to the committee that it had tapped the help of personnel of the US Department of Homeland Security in scanning another set of brand new magnetic lifters that passed through the Customs.

A picture of a US DHS personnel scanning a lifter just using a handheld device was shown during the hearing. The lifters were found to be negative for drugs.

The Commission on Human Rights (CHR), on the other hand, called out the Duterte administration regarding government officials implicated in the war against drugs.

“It is most concerning that, while the campaign against illegal drugs sits at the heart of this administration’s governance agenda, it is also frontline government officers in charge of the anti-drug drive who have been allegedly involved in smuggling P6.8-billion worth of shabu in the country,” CHR spokesperson Jacqueline de Guia said.

De Guia said that this happened while the rising death toll of the bloody war only netted small-time pushers or killed suspected peddlers while supposedly resisting arrest.

“To date, the commission has already observed a rising death toll possibly linked to the campaign against illegal drugs — apart from other human rights violations, such as illegal arrests and breaches in due process. Most victims are small-time peddlers and users belonging to poor communities,” De Guia said.

De Guia said the administration should demand greater accountability from erring officials instead of merely implicating them.

“(That would) put better sense in the government’s role of promoting and protecting the human rights of all,” De Guia said. – With Paolo Romero, Rainier Allan Ronda