Anti-illegal drug agents yesterday seized chemicals and machine used to make shabu from an abandoned warehouse in Quezon City.
Joint operatives from the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency-National Capital Region (PDEA-NCR) and Quezon City Police District (QCPD) raided the suspected shabu laboratory hidden in one of the warehouses on Quirino, Barangay Baesa around 9:10 a.m.
QCPD director Chief Supt. Guillermo Eleazar said they found in the warehouse as big as a basketball half-court chemicals, a mixer and other precursors used in making methamphetamine hydrochloride or shabu.
Eleazar said that with the machine and the substance, the laboratory can produce 200 kilograms or about R1 billion worth of shabu per cycle. They, however, did not find finished products in the warehouse which appeared to have been cleaned and abandoned on purpose.
The raid, he said, was an offshoot to an operation by the PDEA-NCR in Binondo, Manila last year where they arrested Chinese nationals suspected to be members of an international drug syndicate.
The arrested foreigners then pointed to a co-member, a certain Kwok Kuen Yu, who allegedly facilitated a drug laboratory in Barangay Baesa.
Eleazar said the PDEA-NCR secured a search warrant from a Quezon City court against the Chinese suspect.
During yesterday’s operation, however, operatives found an unattended warehouse. Kwok Kuen Yu was not around.
The QCPD chief said the warehouse, according to residents, had been abandoned since last year.
The owner of the warehouse, meanwhile, told authorities he had no knowledge that the property was being used for illegal drug activities. Kwok, he said, had paid for lease of the warehouse until July this year. (VANNE TERRAZOLA)