NBI recaptures elusive ‘big fish’

The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) has re-arrested a convicted Taiwanese drug dealer, who has been a fugitive from the law for almost 14 years now.

NBI Director Reynaldo Wycoco said the government considers Frank Chua, alias Tsai Jung Shui and Tsai Fan Yin, as a "big fish" in its list of illegal drug dealers and traffickers.

"We consider this guy a really a big fish in the illegal drug industry," Wycoco told reporters as he presented Chua to the media during a press conference at NBI headquarters in Manila yesterday.

Wycoco said Chua was arrested inside a restaurant at the Subic Freeport Zone in Zambales last July 4 by joint elements of the NBI-Anti-Drug Task Force, Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency and the Philippine National Police-Anti-Illegal Drug Task Force.

Chua did not resist arrest but insisted he was not the man being sought by authorities.

He identified himself as Tsai Jung Shui, the president and chairman of the board of Zone Swan International Inc. His lawyers demanded his release.

Ruel Lasala of the NBI-Anti-Drug Task Force said Chua’s denial prompted the bureau to tap the services of Dr. Alejandro Kahanding, chief of the NBI-Dactyloscopy Division for analysis of Chua’s fingerprints.

"Comparison between fingerprints from jail records and those of Chua’s revealed that they belong to one and the same person," Kahanding said.

Kahanding said they found 18 identical points in the specimen, exceeding the standard of 10.

Lasala said Chua was convicted for shipping into the country 58 kilos of high grade shabu with a street value of P116 million last Aug. 10, 1989. The shipment was loaded in a vessel moored at the dock fronting Barangay Tamuring Primero, Candon in Ilocos Sur.

Chua, along with three other Taiwanese – James Feng, Tu Chun Wung and Ai Wu Sun – commissioned fisherman Wilson Molina to bring them to the highway. The four later asked Molina to escort them back to the shoreline.

The activities of Chua’s group were reported to the barangay officials, who sought police assistance. This led to the arrest of the foreigners and seizure of 58 kilos of shabu loaded in four bags.

In April of the following year, however, the four managed to escape from their detention cell in Vigan, Ilocos Sur.

Lasala said the four men were convicted in absentia and sentenced to life imprisonment by Ilocos Sur Judge Gabino Balbin Jr. of Regional Trial Court Branch 23.

Last month, Ruel Bolivar, chief of the NBI Olongapo District Office received information that the fugitive Chua had been spotted in Subic.