At least P120M worth of shabu intercepted at Clark airport

FOUR packages from California, United States containing 17.7 kilograms of suspected shabu with an estimated street value of P120.36 million were recently seized by the Bureau of Customs (BOC) at the Port of Clark in Pampanga.

The parcels, which were disguised as chairs and bar stools, arrived at the Clark Freeport Zone last Tuesday, June 5, 2018, the BOC said.

According to the BOC, joint elements of the Customs Anti-Illegal Drugs Interdiction Task Force (CAIDTF) and the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) Regional Office III delivered one of the packages to an indicated delivery address, which led them to arrest Everlyn Lunzaga, who received the parcel consigned to a certain Robert Alejandro Nazareno.

Apart from Nazareno, other consignees of the packages were identified as Christian Santillan Frias, Dominic Espinosa Gallardo, and Gina Fernandez Santiago; while the senders of the packages were identified as Rania Frias, Maria Nazareno, Vanessa Gallardo, and Rania Fernandez.

“With the heightened border control against illegal drugs, the customs examiners conducted a profiling on the incoming shipments with description of goods and country of origin strikingly similar to the scheme of the Port of Clark’s latest seizure,” BOC Commissioner Isidro Lapeña said in a statement issued on Monday.

Lapeña said they suspected the existence of illegal imports as they were similar with previously intercepted packages – chairs and bar stools containing shabu.

“After close coordination with PDEA, the four packages were subjected to 100% examination where the customs examiners and PDEA agents found two packs of crystalline substances in each of the four boxes,” Lapena said.

“The PDEA agents utilized a drug meter reader detector, which registered positive for methamphetamine hydrochloride,” he explained.

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