CLARK FREEPORT – It was a P90-million contraband that was supposed to land in Manila, but somehow found its way to this freeport.
The P90-million worth of shabu was turned over here Tuesday by Customs Commissioner Isidro Lapeña Jr. to the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) after they were uncovered despite being declared as Buddha statue shipments in boxes via the United Parcels Services (UPS) cargo firm here.
Lapeña said six boxes were fl own here last Jan. 25 with fake consignees and different addresses in Cavite.
The contraband, however, was initially supposed to land in Manila. UPS was reported to have asked Bureau of Customs (BoC) officials not to identify itself as medium for the contraband.
He said BoC personnel at the Port of Clark got suspicious of the boxes after two other similar boxes, also misdeclared as containing statues, were found to also contain six kilos of shabu worth P34 million two days earlier on Jan. 23.
The earlier boxes also had an addressee in Trece Martires, also in Cavite, where PDEA agents arrested the couple Taib Suriog, 35, and Maurica de Padua, both residents of Naic, Cavite.
In a statement, the US Embassy said PDEA’s interdiction of the two boxes last Jan. 23 was based on information from the US Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).
Clark International Airport Corp. (CIAC) president-CEO Alexander Cauguiran said while the arrival of the two boxes last Jan. 23 was tipped off by the US Homeland Security, the discovery of shabu in the other boxes which arrived two days later was based on the observation of BoC personnel who noted similarities in the two shipments.
Cauguiran also noted that the contraband was initially bound for Manila, not Clark.
PDEA regional director Joseph Ladib said that his agents are now looking into the involvement of more persons in the case, saying that those involved in the two shipments could belong to only one syndicate.
