The city police said in a report that the arrest came after Korean Jusang Woo called up by long distance the police in his country to tell them that suspect Kim Insung, who stays in this city, had tried to use him to smuggle shabu into South Korea.
This city hosts a Korean community near the Clark International Airport.
Woo said the day before the arrests, Insung asked to bring with him to Korea a box of medicines for relatives in Korea.
Insung allegedly asked him to pick up the box in room 303 at VIP hotel in Barangay Anunas here.
When Woo went to pick up the box, he found out it contained what seemed to be shabu.
Woo then contacted by overseas call the South Korean police which referred the matter to the Korean embassy in Manila.
In turn, the embassy sought the help of the police, which tasked the local police Criminal Intelligence and Detection Group (CIDG) to investigate the case.
Woo said on the phone that he told Insung he knew what the box really contained and that he was not willing to bring it to Korea. Insung then told him he would go to the hotel at about 5 p.m. to pick up the box.
CDIG agents monitored the hotel, but it was a Filipina identified as Dahlia Eclarino who attempted to retrieve the box from the hotel. Eclarino was then held by the cops.
The report said Insung again called up Woo at about 8 p.m. and insisted that Insung, who was supposed to fly that night to Korea via the Clark airport, bring with him the illegal drugs by hiding them in his crotch.
Woo said Insung has told him that a security man at the airport would be waiting for him at 11 p.m. and make sure he would be able to fly without being found out.
With CIDG agents monitoring the airport, Woo went to the airport, but no security man showed up to escort him even past midnight.
The report said another Korean, identified as Kim Sangsu was arrested after hotel CCTV camera showed that he was the one who had left the box with shabu that Woo was supposed to pick up.
The footage also showed another Korean, identified as Lee Kyu Rak, as having paid for the use of room 303 in the hotel.
He, too, was arrested. It was Kyu Rak who told CIDG investigators that Insung could be found at that moment on the third floor of Angel’s KTV Bar along Friendship highway in Barangay Pampang here.
Police said Insung was found in possession of eight mid-size sachets of suspected shabu, five cellular phones and $18,000.
Appropriate charges were filed against the three Korean nationals and their Filipino cohort.
