P50-million shabu chemicals, equipment seized in lab

MANILA, Philippines - The shabu chemicals and equipment seized from an underground laboratory busted in San Miguel, Bulacan last Monday were estimated to be worth P50 million.

The Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) said the clandestine facility yielded, among others, semi-processed shabu yet to be crystallized.

The woman who was found occupying the two-story house atop the underground lab has also been identified as Hong Xi Wang. She was with her two-year-old daughter during the raid.

Maj. Ferdinand Marcelino, PDEA-Special Enforcement Services chief, said they were still trying to get more information from the woman through the help of an interpreter.

Marcelino said one of the two Chinese men found dead in the underground shabu lab could well be the woman’s husband.

Autopsy showed that the two men were murdered: one, identified as Wu Xiao Shan, had a broken neck, while the other one, still unidentified, had a broken skull.

Dangerous Drugs Board Chairman Vicente Sotto III said the PDEA and other law enforcement agencies are now “trying to get the people” behind the shabu lab in Sitio Biga, Barangay Calumpang in San Miguel town.

Sotto said the operation does not stop at just identifying the two dead Chinese nationals and determining the worth of the seized shabu chemicals and equipment.

The PDEA suspects that something happened in the underground facility two to three days before the raid.