Bulacan house yields shabu chemicals

BALIUAG, Bulacan – A joint team of the police and the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) seized 290 boxes of shabu chemicals that could produce a billion pesos worth of the illegal drug during a raid on a house here yesterday.

PDEA director-general Dionisio Santiago said the raid on the house on San Carlos street in Barangay San Jose was the result of three months of surveillance made possible by a tip from one of the agency’s “private eyes.”

Also involved in the raid were elements of the Provincial Drug Enforcement Group, intelligence units of the regional police, and the Baliuag police.

Seized during the raid were 290 boxes of controlled precursors and essential chemicals (CPECs) listed under the United Nations’ 1988 Single Convention on Psychotropic Substances.

The raiding team, however, failed to arrest Allan Ong and Tan Iloc Gan, suspected to be members of the Chinese triad, who had rented the house.

Santiago said the 290 boxes of CPECs, if mixed with ephedrine, could produce at least 500 kilograms of shabu with a street value of P1 billion.

As of press time, PDEA chemists were subjecting the seized chemicals to field test validation.

Last December, a shabu laboratory was raided in Calumpit town, yielding equipment worth almost a billion pesos which could produce multimillion-peso shabu every week.

Police have also raided shabu laboratories in Meycauayan City and Bocaue, Guiguinto and Marilao towns since 2003, also confiscating millions of pesos worth of equipment and chemicals. But like in yesterday’s operation, no one was arrested in these raids. – With Ric Sapnu