3 Chinese nationals arrested with shabu

Three Chinese nationals, believed to be members of an international drug syndicate, were arrested yesterday by the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) Special Task Force who seized a kilo of shabu from them during a buy-bust operation in Manila.

Lim Shu Hal, 40, Wang Shizhi, 20, and Tal Ti Yun, 45, are now detained at the DILG detention cell, as they await charges of violation of the Dangerous Drug Act.

According to DILG Special Task Force chief, Superintendent Carlos Baltazar, the suspects were apprehended at about 12 a.m. at Skyrise Hotel in Binondo, Manila.

Operatives of the task force, led by Chief Inspector Nelson Yabut, conducted the buy-bust operation by arranging a purchase with the suspects at room 518 of the hotel. PO3 Feliciano de Leon posed as poseur-buyer.

The suspects gave De Leon a plastic bag containing at least one kilo of shabu after the police handed them P1 million in marked money. The agents then barged inside the room and collared the three suspects. Baltazar said the suspects have been under surveillance for over a week now.

He added that the Chinese nationals have been engaged in drug trafficking in the country for over a year but it was only recently that a Filipino-Chinese informant tipped them off about the suspects’ illegal activities.

Meanwhile, a drug dealer believed to be a ranking official of the Moro National Liberation Front was arrested by police in an anti-illegal drugs operation in Makati City the other day.

Police identified the suspect as Fahad Kayao, of Maguindanao, Cotabato, reportedly the group commander of the so-called Muthalla National Command of the MNLF.

Senior Inspector Danilo Javier, chief of the Makati police Station 9 said Kayao has been under surveillance for some time after his neighbors tipped them off on the suspect’s alleged drug peddling activities.

Kayao, 27, was arrested in a buy-bust operation conducted by Javier’s men along Bernardino Street, Laperal Compound the other day.

Based on the report of Javier, Kayao was arrested and charged for violating the Commission on Elections’ gun ban and illegal possession of firearms as a caliber .38 revolver was seized from the suspect.

At the Bureau of Immigration, agents arrested on Monday a Filipino-American wanted in the United States for defrauding the federal government of millions of dollars in veteran health care benefits.

Immigration Commissioner Andrea Domingo identified the fugitive as Romualdo Nisaya Garcia, a retired US military serviceman, who was arrested by immigration agents in his hideout in Pangasinan.

Garcia was arrested on the strength of a deportation warrant issued by Domingo for violation of the Philippine Immigration Act.

Domingo said Garcia was one of the four Filipino-Americans who were issued summary deportation orders on Sept. 6 last year upon request of the United States Embassy.

Domingo said Garcia was tagged as the brains behind a syndicate conniving with Filipino doctors here in submitting bogus benefit claims to the US government from US veterans living in the Philippines.

She also disclosed that a warrant of arrest was issued for Garcia in 1999 by the US District Court in Western Wisconsin where he was charged, together with three other Filipino-Americans, with multiple counts of mail fraud and filing false, fictitious and fraudulent claims. – Marvin Sy, Rey Arquiza