Korean nabbed in Pasig

A Korean businessman, suspected to be the local connection of a Korean mafia, was arrested yesterday and yielded more than a kilo of shabu with a street value of P2 million during a raid in Pasig City.

The suspect, Tae Won Hong, alias Francis, 45, offered a P100,000 bribe to Chief Inspector Nelson Yabut, head of the raiding team from the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) Detection and Special Operations Division (DSOD) in exchange for his freedom. Tae, who has stayed in the country for almost seven years, failed to present proper documentation, especially his passport.

Senior Superintendent Cipriano Querol Jr., DSOD chief had placed Tae under a month of surveillance after an informant tipped him off about his drug peddling.

During several tailing operations, Tae would stop his Sonata Hyundai car with license plate WRC 663 in the middle of EDSA apparently to throw off his pursuers. "He managed to elude my men a number of times. But the long arm of the law finally caught up with him," said Querol in an interview.

After the informant revealed the exact place where Tae kept his illegal drugs, Querol applied for a search warrant from Judge Alfredo Flores of the Pasig City Regional Trial Court Branch 167. Tae was leaving the Parc Royale Condominium located along Jade St., Ortigas Center when Querol’s men pounced on him Wednesday. He flashed an identification card identifying him as a confidential agent of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), which turned out later to be fake. Querol said the picture of Tae appears on the ID but it bears the name of San Jin Lee.

A native of Seoul, Korea the suspect yielded one kilo and 145.60 grams of shabu inside his room when CIDG agents headed by Yabut swooped down and searched his place on the strength of a search warrant issued by Flores.

An examination at the PNP-Crime Laboratory of the recovered illegal drugs proved that it was metamphetamine hydrochloride or shabu.

Now detained at Camp Crame, the suspect who has been charged with violation of the country’s dangerous drugs law is also facing charges of usurpation of authority and bribery after he introduced himself as an agent of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) to the CIDG raiding team.

When he was uncovered to be a fake NBI civilian agent, Matillano said the suspect tried to buy his way out by offering Yabut and his men P100,000 in the form of two bundles of P500 bills.

Pasig City assistant prosecutor Dennis Pastrana-denied bail to the Korean.