Japanese smuggles shabu, bullets at NAIA

Airport police at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) arrested a Japanese tourism who was carrying a wooden ashtray that was found to contain 13 bullets and nine sachets of methamphetamine hydrochloride as he was about to board a Japan Airlines flight for Narita yesterday.

Chief Superitendent Atilano Morada said Reiichiro Hayashi, who arrived in the country last Sept. 12, allowed the ashtray to be scanned and inspectors found scores of holes at the bottom of the ashtray, through which the bullets and the crystalline drug, better known as shabu, were inserted.

Hayashi denied owning the ashtray, saying that a friend asked him to bring it to Japan as a gift. He was turned over to the Pasay City prosecutor’s office.

This is the third time that the airport police has intercepted illegal items from Japanese passengers.      – Rudy Santos