Shabu chemicals worth P300 M seized in Quezon, Laguna raids
CAMP VICENTE LIM, Laguna – Drug enforcement agents arrested five Chinese and a Filipino and seized P300 million worth of chemicals used in manufacturing shabu in separate operations in Quezon and Laguna yesterday, authorities here said.
Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) Director General Dionisio Santiago identified the arrested suspects as Chinese Lin Hai Jung, Weng Shi Chiang and Wu Chih Yang; Taiwanese Chiu Lu Hsiang and Wu Jung Hsien; and a Filipino whose identity has yet to be verified.
Agents of the PDEA and the Army’s 2nd Infantry Division nabbed the suspects during raids in Sitio Arcao, Barangay Maragondon in Real, Quezon and at a warehouse at
The PDEA said at least P300 million worth of chemicals and laboratory equipment were seized during the raids conducted on the strength of search warrants issued by Executive Judge Thelma Ponferrada of Quezon City Regional Trial Court Branch 104.
Derrick Carreon, chief of the PDEA public information office, said the operations were part of an eight-month intelligence-gathering project dubbed as “Oplan Blister.”
Carreon said the Quezon shabu lab was set up at a 60-square-meter warehouse owned by a certain Ivy Villa in a secluded area.
“The drugs that were found are not high-grade in quality and could be intended for local consumption,” Carreon said.
He said the seized illegal drugs were brownish in color and could still be refined before they are distributed in Metro Manila and Southern Tagalog.
He said the arrested suspects are all detained at the PDEA national office and will be charged with drug trafficking.
Last July 9, police also seized six truckloads of chemicals and other paraphernalia that can be used to manufacture 180,000 kilos of shabu worth more than P1 trillion, during a raid on a farmhouse-turned-shabu lab in Naguilian, La Union.
Senior Superintendent Noli Taliño, La Union police director, said the raiding team arrested two caretakers of the farm that was leased by a certain George Cordero from Bulacan.
Cordero was not around during the raid but caretakers Dante “Tomas” Palaganas, 41, and Andy Tangalin, 44, were taken into custody.
Palaganas implicated a police colonel (superintendent), whose name was withheld pending investigation, in the shabu lab in Barangay Bimmotobot, Naguilian town.
A task force formed to probe the shabu lab is now probing the police colonel, who was “administratively relieved” from his post in Pangasinan following Palaganas’ allegation that he had given protection to the maintainers of the illegal drug facility.
Palaganas said the syndicate behind the Naguilian shabu lab had five Chinese chemists.
Chief Superintendent Ramon Gatan, head of Task Force Bimmotobot, said charges have been filed against Palaganas and Tangalin.
Gatan said they are considering the filing of charges against Cordero. – With Edu Punay and Jun Elias
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