2 caught with P10-M shabu

The Western Police District (WPD) has scored a major offensive against organized crime with the arrest of four persons allegedly involved in high-profile illegal activities, including two Chinese nationals found in possession of five kilos of shabu with a street value of P10 million.

Presented before Manila Mayor Lito Atienza yesterday were Chinese nationals Jiang Zhongtian, 35, and his female accomplice Wu Yuting, 30; Albashir Dimalapang, 33, a businessman from Zamboanga City; and Manuel Columna Jr. alias, Lucio Columna, 29, of Cagayan province.

WPD director Chief Superintendent Pedro Bulaong said the two Chinese nationals yielded some five kilos of shabu when arrested, while some 25,000 pieces of fake P300-denominated pre-paid cards worth P7.5 million were seized from Dimalapang. Columna is the alleged gunman in the ambush-slaying of a lawyer and his eight-year-old daughter in Binondo, Manila on Aug. 15 last year.

In his report to Atienza, Bulaong said Jiang and Wu are suspected members of a transnational drug group engaged in the distribution of shabu in Bulacan province, Valenzuela City, Caloocan City and Manila, particularly in Binondo area.

Zhongtian was later presented at Camp Karingal along with 100 drug offenders.

The two Chinese suspects, who had been under surveillance by the WPD’s anti-illegal drugs unit, were spotted on board a vehicle at about 10:30 a.m. Friday along McArthur Highway in Valenzuela City.

The suspects, sensing that they were being tailed by police operatives, even tried to dispose off their contraband contained in a black garbage bag at a gasoline station. However, alert policemen immediately seized the bag and when it was opened revealed five heat-sealed packets of shabu estimated at one kilo each.

Dimalapang, the distributor of fake cell cards, was arrested in a buy-bust operation along Alvarado street in Binondo, after the former was tipped off by an informant.

Bulaong said the concerned cellular phone service company had issued a certification that the seized pre-paid cards were either fake, unauthorized or authentic imitations of the original.

The WPD chief also announced yesterday the solution of the ambush-slay of lawyer Franklin Tamargo and his daughter Gail with the arrest of Columna.

Columna, who was arrested in Calamaniugan, Cagayan province last Tuesday, was positively identified by witnesses as the gunman in the ambush-slay.

Columna, who had a warrant for arrest, told investigators he was paid P10,000 to kill the elder Tamargo due to political rivalry.