P5.4-million cocaine dug up in Zambales beach

MALOLOS CITY , Philippines  – Police dug up over a kilogram of high-grade cocaine worth about P5.4 million in a beach in Zambales last Monday, authorities said.

The substance was confirmed to be cocaine in tests conducted by the crime laboratory of the Central Luzon police at Camp Olivas in Pampanga.

Superintendent Baltazar Mamaril, spokesman of the Central Luzon police, said the cocaine was recovered from a beach in Barangay Pundaquit, San Antonio, Zambales.

Mamaril said police received information that fishermen plying the Mindoro-Manila Bay-Bataan-Zambales sea lane had found plastic containers containing suspicious substances believed to be cocaine, somewhere in Mindoro.

Police expressed apprehension that a syndicate in the region would facilitate the distribution of kilos of illegal drugs reportedly similarly found in Zambales.