Transnational shabu ring operating in Southern Mindanao

DAVAO CITY — The Southern Mindanao chief of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) believes that a transnational syndicate is behind the illegal drugs trade in this part of the country.

Wilkins Villanueva, PDEA regional chief, said the transnational ring is largely financed by people of Chinese or other Asian descent who have managed to elude arrest.

"We are closely monitoring the movement of these people and are pursuing them so they could no longer operate in this part of the country," he said.

Villanueva said this syndicate was behind the shabu laboratories which have been busted in Northern and Southern Mindanao since last December.

Meanwhile, anti-narcotics teams from the two regions swooped down early this week on a shabu laboratory in Barangay Cugman, Cagayan de Oro City, seizing at least P20 million worth of shabu-making equipment and chemicals.

The warehouse-turned-shabu lab was allegedly owned by a certain Stephen Gaisano and was rented out to one Johnson Chua, also known as Greg Sia, David Sy and Juan Tan. However, no suspect was arrested during the raid.

Police also earlier raided a similar facility in the nearby towns of Alubihib and Opol in Misamis Oriental last December.

Villanueva told The STAR the operators of the Cagayan de Oro shabu lab were the same ones behind the shabu lab busted here on New Year’s Eve and which yielded more than P300 million in high-grade shabu, shabu-making equipment and chemicals.

The suspected financier of the Davao City shabu lab, Allan Sy, is still at large.