Triad has mole in NarcGroup?

The anti-narcotics unit of the Philippine National Police (NarcGroup) is investigating reports that the Hong Kong triad drug syndicate has a "mole" in its office.

The "inside spy" theory cropped up after elements of the Narcotics Group and the Regional Intelligence and Special Operations Office (RISOO) found a letter bearing the signature of a NarcGroup official in the triad’s warehouse they raided in Paco, Manila.

A background check on the police official showed that he has recently refurbished his old house, owns two houses in the US and a fleet of expensive vehicles and has started a number of businesses despite his short stint at the NarcGroup.

NarcGroup chief Director Efren Fernandez was briefed on the "insider" angle and will act in due time against the NarcGroup official and his men, depending on the outcome of a formal and thorough investigation.

The police official is closely identified with Fernandez’s predecessor Chief Superintendent Reynor Gonzales, who is presently on floating status.

However, The STAR source who participated in the raid on the warehouse in Quirino Avenue in Paco, claimed they are still in the process of deciphering the contents of the NarcGroup officials’ letter to a suspected member of the Hong Kong triad operating an international drug syndicate in the country.

"We are regularly updating Gen. Fernandez on the progress of our investigation," the source assured The STAR. "He will be the first to know of the outcome of our investigation on the erring NarcGroup official."

It was not the first time that the NarcGroup official was linked to drug syndicates.

RISOO operatives also found the telephone number of his NarcGroup office in a phone directory found during a raid on a shabu laboratory in Pasig City last month.

A RISOO operative told The STAR that the NarcGroup official surfaced at the raided rented house in Capitol 8 Subdivision to mingle with the raiders. He even assured their superior officer of Narcgroup’s full cooperation in working for the arrest of other drug syndicate members behind the makeshift shabu laboratory operation, the RISOO operative said.

In the Pasig City raid, eight undocumented Chinese nationals and three Filipinos were arrested. The raiders recovered some 20 kilos of shabu and a large quantity of drug-making chemicals. The three Filipinos will be used as government witnesses against the Chinese nationals.

The presence of the erring NarcGroup official in the Pasig City raid did not arouse any suspicion from the RISOO raiders. But when his letter was found in the Hong Kong triad’s warehouse in Paco, RISOO operatives immediately conducted a deeper probe on his alleged involvement in drug syndicates in the country.

The raid at the Paco warehouse came after combined NarcGroup and RISOO agents arrested seven undocumented Chinese and confiscated 57 kilos of shabu during recent raids in Pasay City and Manila.