‘Lab produced 90 kilos of shabu monthly’

The shabu factory raided by police in Pasig City was producing a maximum of 90 kilos of the illegal drug with a street value of P180 million per month, police said yesterday.

Documents seized at the make-shift laboratory also showed that the makeshift shabu factory was moved by the drug syndicate from one place to another every three months to prevent arousing the suspicions of the police or neighbors.

Elements of the Regional Intelligence and Special Operations Office (RISOO) are presently sifting through the recovered documents to determine the extent of operations of the drug syndicate headed by a certain Cai Hontian alias Huai Ia, who remains at large.

Metro Manila police chief Deputy Director General Edgar Galvante admitted that the raid at the shabu factory located at the back of a house rented by Xing Wang, 44, at San Agustin St., Capitol 8 Subdivision would slightly affect the shabu supply in the metropolis.

"We only seized a small amount of shabu as compared to that recovered during a recent raid in Batangas City," said Galvante. "But the closure of the factory in Pasig City would somehow lessen the illegal drugs circulating in Metro Manila."

RISOO operatives seized five kilos of shabu in six plastic bags, a pail containing ingredients used for shabu "crystallization", eight large containers with 210 liters of a liquid substance and raw materials such as iodized salt, hydrochloric acid and soda flakes for manufacturing shabu.

Also seized were six cellular phones, two Ingram machine pistols, one with a silencer, an Uzi and assorted ammunition, a Claymore mine, blasting caps and a detonating cord.

Eight Chinese nationals, five of them tourists who arrived in the country two weeks ago, and three Filipinos were arrested by agents of the National Capital Regional Police Office (NCRPO) headed by Chief Inspector Nelson Yabut, head of the RISOO investigation division.

They were identified as Xing alias Hawk Chua Villanueva, 31; Chua Chi, 37; Huang Hongwei, 34; Joey Lu; Ronal Yao, 25; Chua Lin Yen, 20; Wen Jin Cai, 23; Luven San Juan, 19; Geneveve Ordono, 20; Analyn Plaza, 23; and Tomas Lu, 34.

Yabut said a logbook recovered at the raided factory showed that the drug syndicate was producing two to three kilos of shabu per day.

The shabu factory was in operation for less than three months, Yabut said, adding that Xing rented the house for P30,000 a month. Police said the drug syndicate also maintained a shabu factory at a house they rented at Valle Verde Subdivision. They were renting the house for P60,000 a month.

The drug syndicate members were staying at the Twin Towers Condominium in Ortigas before they transferred to Valle Verde after three months, police said.