BI orders manhunt for shabu lab owners

Immigration Commissioner Andrea Domingo ordered a manhunt yesterday for two Chinese nationals and a Taiwanese suspected of owning the shabu laboratory which was discovered after a warehouse burned down in Valenzuela City.

Domingo said she has placed in the bureau’s watchlist the three foreigners identified as Lee Yuk Sau and Wang Yashi, both Chinese and Taiwenese woman Lin Tsung Huan.

She said the suspects were placed in the watchlist upon the request of Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) director general Anselmo Avenido. Immigration officers at the airports have instructed to turn over the suspects to the PDEA in the event that they are intercepted while trying to flee the country.

A check of the bureau’s records showed that Lee is a holder of a special investor’s residence visa which allowed him to acquire residence status in the country.

The PNP earlier identified only Lee and Wang as the owners of the shabu lab but a search of the burned building led to the recovery of Lin’s passport. Police seized a total of 650 kilos of shabu inside the clandestine laboratory, considered as the biggest haul so far in the country.

Meanwhile, the Northern Police District Office said they are conducting a similar manhunt against four more suspects, who were seen with Lee and Wang when they left the burning building. They left the scene on board a green Honda CRV.

In a related development, Interior and Local Government Secretary Jose Lina Jr. ordered police and local government heads to conduct regular inspections of warehouses and other commercial establishments.

In a memorandum, Lina ordered concerned officials to conduct the "zoning" in accordance with the law, which he said was one of the ways to help authorities discover more secret shabu labs. – Rey Arquiza, Jerry Botial, Marichu Villanueva