More shabu chemicals, equipment seized in Pampanga

CAMP OLIVAS, Pampanga – A joint team of the Pampanga police and the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) seized more chemicals and equipment used in manufacturing shabu during a raid on two other buildings in a compound in Floridablanca town yesterday.

Chief Superintendent Errol Pan, Central Luzon police director, said the raiding team was armed with a search warrant issued by Executive Judge Reynaldo Ros of the Manila Regional Trial Court Branch 33.

Pan said the raiding team swooped down on the two buildings in Barangay Consuelo together with local officials led Floridablanca Mayor Eddie Guerrero, Barangay Consuelo chairman Remigio Dimla, and Senior Superintendent Keith Ernald Singian, Pampanga police director, who supervised the operation.

Pan said the search warrant was served to Renie Reyes, 29, caretaker of the compound.

Singian said Reyes was arrested and detained at the Floridablanca police station while appropriate charges are being readied against him.

All the confiscated chemicals and equipment were taken to the PDEA office in Manila for examination, he said.

As of yesterday, Superintendent Jose Rayco, PDEA regional officer, could not give an estimate on the value of the seized chemicals and equipment.

Last Sept. 25, the police-PDEA team confiscated chemicals such as chloroform, pyridine and other shabu precursors and several equipment in a building in the compound.

Three Chinese nationals, identified as Peter Pei, Caroline Dy and Eugene Bao, were tagged in the operation of the shabu lab.

Police were investigating a land dispute in the area when they chanced upon the illegal facility.

Bao’s wife, a certain Vilma Dimarucut, reportedly bought the property from one Jesus Dimla sometime in 2004.

Pan, in a text message to reporters, earlier said that he would order a deeper investigation into the shabu lab to unmask local policemen and barangay officials who might be in cahoots with its operators.