Guns, drugs, sex toys seized in Bilibid raid

MANILA, Philippines – High-powered firearms, illegal drugs, sex toys and other contraband were seized when police raided the maximum security compound of the New Bilibid Prison (NBP) in Muntinlupa City yesterday morning.

Teams from the Bureau of Corrections-Special Weapons and Tactics unit and Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency swooped down on the dormitories of the Commando, Sigue-Sigue and Sputnik gangs, BuCor Director Ricardo Rainier Cruz said.

NBP Superintendent Richard Schwarzkopf  Jr. supervised the raid.

Schwarzkopf said the raiders uncovered a cache of firearms – assault rifles, five 12-gauge shotguns, a 30 caliber carbine, .45 caliber pistols, .38 caliber revolvers, gun silencers, 50,000 bullets and 60 improvised bladed weapons – buried under the bunk of the Commando gang leader, who was earlier transferred to the prison’s high security facility along with 58 other high-value inmates.

The firearms were wrapped in plastics and discovered in the abandoned “kubol” of the gang leader, Cruz said.

Cruz said they would conduct surprise inspections of the national penitentiary regularly to confiscate the firearms and contraband kept by the inmates.

Jail officers inspect firearms, bladed weapons and other contraband seized during a raid at the New Bilibid Prison yesterday. Kriz John Rosales

“The clearing operations will continue at the prison’s maximum security compound,” he said.

Authorities also seized a civet cat from Palawan, locally known as “musang,” from the Commando gang dormitory. The animal is the symbol of the gang.

Police confiscated sex toys, shabu, drug paraphernalia, wooden knuckles, wine-making dispensers and gadgets such as flat screen televisions, refrigerators, mobile phones, chargers and more than P400,000 in cash.

It was the biggest haul of contraband and firearms since late last year when then justice secretary Leila de Lima ordered the clearing of the kubols of high-profile inmates.

Nineteen convicts were plucked from the NBP and transferred to the National Bureau of Investigation jail in Manila following the raid.

The inmates returned to the NBP recently but were isolated at the prison’s newly built high-security facility with separate detention cells and closed-circuit television cameras.

At least 14,000 convicts are held in the nine-hectare prison facility, Cruz said.

He said the gangs were converted into barangay-type communities and their leaders are no longer elected by the inmates.

Among the gangs in the national penitentiary are the Batang City Jail, Batang Samar Leyte, OXO, Bahala Na, Happy Go Lucky, Batang Cebu, Genuine Ilocano, Bicol Romblon Masbate and Batman (Batang Mandarambong).