Binondo shabu bust: 40 kilos

Some 40 kilos of shabu with a street value of at least P80 million were seized by police in Binondo, Manila the other day.

According to Binondo Police Station chief, Superintendent Juanito de Guzman, the drugs were found inside a white Kia Carnival LS van with plate number WFK-211 parked at the 4th floor parking area of the Chinatown Steel Tower located on Asuncion street.

The van was allegedly owned by a certain Peter Chua, police said.

De Guzman said elements of the Camp Crame- based Anti-Narcotics Group led by Senior Inspector Eleazar Matta coordinated with his office at 10 a.m. last Friday. At about 1:30 p.m. that day, elements of the Binondo Police Station accompanied the anti-narcotics agents to the 4th floor parking area of Chinatown Steel Tower.

At about 3:25 p.m. that day, the joint police agents conducted a search of the van in the presence of the building’s chief security officer, Ireneo Quilong; security officer-in-charge Inocencio Elpuz, a certain May Lirac and a certain Marrieta, reportedly Chua’s secretary.

During the search, De Guzman said the policemen found a blue travel bag containing the alleged shabu.

The confiscated substance was turned over to Chief Inspector Napoleon Villegas, chief of the Anti-Trafficking Division of the Anti-Narcotics Group.

Though there were no reported arrests in the report of the Binondo Police Station, reports reaching Camp Crame said at least seven Chinese men were arrested in the operation. The names of those arrested were, however, not made available to media as the suspects are still undergoing interrogation at the Regional Intelligence Office of the National Capital Region Police Office.

Reports reaching Camp Crame also said that last Friday’s shabu haul was part of an ongoing week-long anti-drug trafficking operation in Binondo which so far has yielded 58 kilos of shabu.