The King Feet Trading warehouse at 1060 North Bay Boulevard South, Navotas is allegedly owned by a Chinese national identified as Deng Xao Li, and is being rented by Wang Yashi, the same man being hunted down for operating the clandestine laboratory in Valenzuela City, which yielded some P2.2 billion worth of shabu.
Police confirmed yesterday that suspect Lee, accompanied by his lawyer, has surrendered to authorities.
At a business conference yesterday, President Arroyo announced the successful Navotas raid, saying the chemicals seized were enough to produce P1 billion worth of shabu.
"Now if we can only make sure that corrupt judges do not turn around the work of any of our law enforcers, as some of them have done in previous cases," the President said.
Agents of the NBI and Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) had to wait for more than three hours Thursday night for a search warrant before entering the warehouse compound in Navotas.
"We did not want to waste a very important operation by getting evidence that would be inadmissible in court," NBI director Reynaldo Wycoco said.
The raid was conducted at 1:30 a.m. but the joint team had been in the area position outside the compound since 10 p.m. the previous day.
An NBI chemist said agents found several barrels and crates containing chemicals for making shabu hidden behind cartons of century eggs, cotton buds and picture frames.
Seized in the raid were 25 bottles of thionyl chloride, 11 boxes of sodium acetate; four boxes of barium sulfate; and three drums of chloroform.
Also seized were 12 bags of caustic soda flakes and 10 drums of a still unidentified liquid. The raiding agents have also seized paraphernalia suspected to be used in the manufacture of shabu, including a water pump, metal kettles, a box of charcoal and a glass distiller.
Wycoco said the seized chemicals could produce at least 1,000 kilos of shabu.
Wycoco said it was one of the Valenzuela warehouse helpers who tipped the NBI about the chemicals in Navotas. He said the Navotas facility was used to store chemicals used for making the shabu in the Valenzuela laboratory.
An NBI investigation showed the Navotas warehouse started operation last November for a trucking business. The NBI said the warehouse was abandoned after the trucking firm moved to Caloocan City.
The seized chemicals and paraphernalia have been loaded into trucks and hauled to Camp Crame for safekeeping.
Wycoco said they are now checking if Wang has Filipino contacts and protectors.
He said they were able to verify that Wang’s alien certificate of registration was fake. He added that Wang was arrested last October, also for drug trafficking, but managed to escape detention and return to mainland China.
"We want to know who his contacts in the Philippines are. We want to know who really owns the warehouse and who protects him (Wang)," Wycoco said. – With Marichu Villanueva, Pete Laude, Ann Corvera