African Drug Syndicate 'testing the waters' in Baguio

BAGUIO CITY, Philippines – The international drug group African Drug Syndicate (ADS) are testing the waters in Baguio using Filipinos as drug mules, the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) in the Cordillera bared.

On Saturday, PDEA agents joined by operatives from the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group-Cordillera cornered a Sudanese national at his rented apartment cum drug den.

Wadah Mohamed Elwasila Elsadig, 22, single, a college student in Baguio City and native of Shandi, Republic of the Sudan, was caught from his temporary residence at 33 Dahlia St., Upper QM, Baguio City.

It was one daring implementation of PDEA – CAR’s Operation Plan 'Black Ice' as Elsadig’s resistance and the presence of his attack dog made it difficult for the anti-narcotic agents to serve the three search warrants against him.

PDEA-Cordillera Assistant Regional Director Gil Castro, who headed the raid, said Elsadig kept two hashish bars, a blister pack of 10-milligram drug Diazepam (with brand name, 'Valium') still containing six tablets, another fully emptied blister pack of Diazepam and suspected records of his connection with a transnational drug syndicate.

The confiscated hashish have an overall weight of 22.4384 grams.

The seized illegal drugs were valued at a total of P5,842.10.

Castro said Elsadig is a suspected member of the ADS, an international drug smuggling organization recruiting and utilizing drug couriers or mules.

The group's modus operandi is for its member to enroll as a foreign exchange student in the Philippines, where during his stay, befriends, courts and marries a female student or potential recruit, and turns her later on into drug mule or cohort.

Elsadig’s tourist visa in the Philippines is already expired, and he had already stayed in different areas in the country and visited various places abroad, Castro said.

PDEA-Cordillera Dir. Allan Ricardo said there is an emerging drug landscape in Baguio City taking cue from the arrest of Elsadig.  â€œIt can be said that transnational drug syndicates are testing-the-water and wanting a bite in the chunk of the drug business.”

Last December in La Trinidad, Benguet, Vice President Jejomar Binay urged Filipinos to report Nigerians who are into using Filipino overseas workers as drug couriers.

Binay, who also is the Presidential Adviser on Overseas Filipino Concerns, a cabinet position he is holding, asked the police and local governments to be on their toes against recruitment of overseas Filipinos as drug couriers.

Unscrupulous Nigerians, he said, were earlier into credit card scams in the country then illegal recruitment and drugs.

Two years ago here, PDEA warned that the dreaded Western African Drug Syndicate (WADS), a well-financed international drug syndicate operating mostly in Southeast Asia, was taking in female students here as their drug mules and has been making Baguio City as the staging point of their operations in Northern Luzon.

The WADS is composed of different nationalities but authorities say most of the arrested members or reported recruiters are Nigerians.

The syndicate uses stolen and falsified documents in their cyber crimes and drug trafficking.

Targetting at least 50 drug mules from universities here, Castro hinted that the syndicate has already recruited two female students from one of the universities in the city.

Two Nigerians allegedly recruited two female students to become mules in the drug business in Southeast Asia.

Baguio City is the education capital of Northern Philippines, having at least five huge universities and a student population of at least 80,000.

Baguio City is also hosting hundreds of foreign students from all over the world, majority of whom are Koreans.

The PDEA also earlier said recruited females as drug mules are paid $2,000 for every successful delivery of 50-90 capsules or a kilo of cocaine. They are sent to Manila to get transportation allowances from other syndicate members, then to Thailand or Malaysia to take supplies of cocaine.

The recruited drug mules then travel to China and Hong Kong to hand the illegal drugs to clients, the PDEA said.

Reports also reveal that the WADS is behind the alarming increase of arrested Filipinos, especially women, due to drug trafficking, including those from the Cordillera.

A 39-year-old resident of Mankayan town, in Benguet native was arrested on Feb. 26, 2009 for keeping 938 grams of heroin at Allama Iqbal International Airport in Lahore, Pakistan. The suspected WADS drug mule was flying to Malaysia.

Another 39-year-old single mother with five children from Baguio City who left Manila for China on March 5, 2010 was arrested keeping 1.5 kilograms of heroin.

Earlier in July 1996, a 61-year-old recruiter from Baguio City was sentenced to life imprisonment for smuggling 1,022 grams of high-grade shabu in China. She was freed after 17 years for good behavior and flew back home January this year.

A 36-year-old mother from Baguio City was also cornered with 1,290 kilos of heroin in Shanghai, China after authorities found in September 2008 the drugs in her handbag luggage. She was sentenced to life imprisonment.

On April 2011, two alleged foreign members of the WADS were arrested in a hotel in Malate, Manila by the National Bureau of Investigation’s (NBI) Anti-Illegal Drug Task Force. One was from Guinea, West Africa and another from Thailand. Authorities also found a kilo of cocaine with an estimated value of P5 million inside their room’s safety deposit box.

The two were about to bring the illicit contraband to Thailand.

Again in March of that year, the NBI also cornered a reported WADS member and seized 352 grams of heroin pegged at P400,000.

Recently, arrested drug mules from the Philippines were recruited by Nigerians. Binay said, “so we must be extra careful in dealing with (these) including how local government and police deal with businesses and their operations in your areas."