MANILA, Philippines – Illegal drugs and equipment used in the manufacture of shabu, worth the equivalent of close to $2 million have been seized in separate raids in the city of Manila and a town just outside Metro Manila in the past two days, the Philippine National Police (PNP) reported.
A PNP spokesman revealed that in one of the raids, police also arrested three Chinese nationals suspected to be members of the notorious Triad drug syndicate based in Hong Kong, which supplies illegal drugs to Southeast Asia.
The three suspects, the spokesman said, were arrested Saturday when a combined team of PNP members and anti-narcotics agents raided their illegal drugs laboratory which produces shabu inside a house in a private housing estate in the town of Cainta, Rizal province in Southern Luzon which is just outside Metro Manila.
Shabu, also known as “ice” and “poor man’s cocaine,” has been tagged as the illegal drug of choice among the increasing number of Filipino drug addicts, mostly the youth.
Aside from the arrest, the spokesman said the raiding team discovered and seized chemicals as well as equipment used in the manufacture of shabu.
The spokesman disclosed that prior to the raid, an undercover drug agent succeeded in arranging a drug deal with the suspects worth $10,000.
The spokesman said that to avoid suspicions, especially among the neighbors, the suspects even put up an exhaust system to siphon off the putrid smoke from the shabu laboratory to a septic tank.
In Manila, the spokesman said Mayor Alfredo Lim personally led a team of narcotics agents in raiding on Friday a suspected mini shabu laboratory in the Chinatown district of Binondo.
The spokesman said the laboratory was found concealed behind the master bedroom’s closet in one of the rooms of a four-storey building in Binondo.
Inside the small room was a refrigerator containing plastic receptacles of crystallized granules suspected to be shabu, according to the spokesman.
He said the laboratory was discovered, based on the confession of a Chinese national, suspected to be the chemist, who was arrested by the police in early March.
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