Foul smell in your village? Call the cops

CAMP OSCAR FLORENDO, La Union – If there is something strange in your neighborhood like a disgusting smell similar to rotten egg, methane or ammonia, call the police.

Thus said Chief Superintendent Romeo Hilomen, Ilocos regional police director, as he revealed that a foul smell led police to the clandestine shabu laboratory recently busted in Barangay Binmotobot, Naguilian, La Union.

Hilomen said drug syndicates usually run shabu labs near a hog or poultry farm to avoid detection.

“So they would tell that it’s just a piggery farm,” he said.

Hilomen said an asset of Senior Superintendent Noli Taliño, La Union police director, reported the strange odor in Barangay Binmotobot, prompting police to conduct surveillance there.

Several truckloads of chemicals that could produce 180,000 kilos of shabu worth about a trillion pesos were seized in the shabu lab.

Hilomen said a foul smell also led to the recent discovery of another shabu lab in Real, Quezon which, along with another illegal facility in Laguna, yielded shabu chemicals worth about P300 million. Three Chinese and two Taiwanese nationals and a Filipino were arrested in the twin raids.

He said he suspects there could be other shabu labs in the Ilocos region.

Intelligence reports said the Naguilian lab had produced about 100 kilos of shabu from May to July last year.