NEWSFLASH

SHABU LAB ON BATANES FERRY BOAT

Tuguegarao, Cagayan, Feb. 12, 2000 Police operatives uncovered a new modus operandi adopted by illegal drug manufacturers for evading raids by land-based anti-drug government agents, with the finding of a shabu laboratory in one of the cabins of a commercial passenger ferryboat in Basco, Batanes.

The regional police, in a report to Philippine National Police chief Deputy Director General Panfilo Lacson, said the vessel, MV Queen Fatima, was docked in Basco when it was raided last weekend.

The raiding team found the shabu laboratory in one of the cabins which also housed chemicals and equipment used in manufacturing the illegal drug, known as methamphetamine hydrochloride.

Police arrested a certain Mr. Segundo, the second engineer of the boat.

Chief Superintendent Thompson Lantion, Cagayan Valley police director, said a former crewmember of MV Queen Fatima had earlier been arrested in Basco and yielded 16 sachets of shabu and shabu paraphernalia.

Police said the clandestine floating laboratory was capable of producing at least 800 kilos of high-grade shabu a week.

Two Chinese nationals and a Filipino, Ernesto Piñera, tagged as the alleged operators of the shabu laboratory, are now being tried in a Manila court.

Lantion said drug syndicates resorted to the operation of shabu laboratories aboard vessels to elude police detection after the dismantling of the Calayan laboratory, said to be the biggest and well-equipped shabu laboratory in the country.

Raw materials used in manufacturing shabu, according to Lantion, are believed have come mainland China and smuggled into the country via Taiwan.