Documents obtained by The STAR from NBI insiders said 8.67 kilos of the illegal substance, contained in five plastic bags, were reported missing during an inventory of the lab’s narcotics stash on April 18.
But the NBI kept the loss under wraps pending further investigation. The STAR tried but failed to reach NBI Director Reynaldo Wycoco for comment.
Sources said the loss was uncovered after Pasay City regional trial court Judge Cesar Ylagan ordered the destruction of the narcotics which was part of about 250 kilos of shabu seized from a condominium unit registered to a certain Sandra Lim on Dec. 26, 2000.
The drugs were deposited at the NBI dangerous drugs section, forensic chemistry division.
But in his report to Ylagan’s sala, dated May 2, 2002, deputy sheriff Rodolfo Toledana said the drugs were supposed to be transported to the boiler incinerator of the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine in Alabang, Muntinlupa City for destruction.
Sources said the shabu was pilfered while it was in NBI custody and that moisture in the plastic bags indicated that the "theft" occurred some time ago.
"It seems that it (the shabu) was untouched for quite a period of time as observed from the moistened plastic bags and from the pentel pen marked written (sic) thereat," Toledana said in his report.
Upon investigation, probers said that while shabu, or methamphetamine hydrochloride, may lose weight due to evaporation, such loss should only be limited to 1.5 percent in each package.
"The deterioration in terms of weight in each of the bags is already explained and justified, however, the disappearance of the five mentioned missing bags are still for the NBI to justify," the report said.
The laboratory where the shabu was deposited leads to adjoining rooms that serve as its office. The NBI reportedly conducted a "re-accounting" of the shabu on April 25 but the five bags remained unaccounted for.
According to court records, the shabu was seized after security guards of the Somerset condominium reported to authorities that they caught a former janitor of the building with the narcotics.
Sources said the janitor appeared to have long discovered that the shabu was stashed in the condominium and had been filching handfuls of the drug and selling it on the street.
The authorities also seized several high-powered firearms and bulletproof vests in the condominium unit that seemed to have been used only as a warehouse.