Taiwanese man nabbed for drug cases

A Taiwanese national, tagged as the owner of the P700 million worth of ephedrine seized during a raid in Bocaue, Bulacan in 2006, was arrested Wednesday in Quezon City.

Director Jefferson Soriano, head of the Anti-Illegal Drugs Special Operations Task Force (AIDSOTF) said Jacky Chuang, alias Chuang Fen-Min, was arrested on the strength of a warrant issued by Judge Ma. Resurreccion Ramos Buhat of the Bulacan Regional Trial Court Branch 80.

Soriano said Chuang fled the country after AIDSOTF raiders recovered 66.33 kilos of ephedrine on Aug. 4, 2006 at a townhouse he and a certain James Go rented in Barangay Turo in Bocaue town.

The AIDSOTF chief said he also received reports that Chuang supplies the illegal drug ketamine in Taiwan and China. Chuang is the subject of the AIDSOTF’s Oplan “Treadstone,” which was put into effect right after the Bocaue raid.

But AIDSOTF claimed Chuang evaded arrest by going abroad.

Superintendent Andy Suan of the AIDSOTF’s special operations unit received a tip from an informant that Chuang has returned to the country to be with his Filipina wife and four children.

Soriano said Chuang is also the subject of another arrest warrant issued by Judge Thelma Bunyi-Medina of Manila RTC Branch 19 in connection with the discovery of a mini-ketamine laboratory in a room he occupied at Burgundy Towers in Malate, Manila on July 6, 2005. – Non Alquitran