TWO Chinese nationals believed to be members of a drug syndicate were killed in an alleged firefight with lawmen following a raid of an illegal drug laboratory in Isabela Sunday afternoon, an official said Monday.
Cagayan Police Chief Gilbert Sosa identified the slain Chinese as Jixin Li Huang alias Kim Punzalan Uy and She Cangbo.
He said the two had been operating the shabu laboratory seized in Cauayan City Isabela at 4 p.m.
Sixteen other drug suspects were arrested during the raid.
The clandestine drug laboratory in Isabela brings to seven the number of shabu manufacturing sites seized by authorities in the war on drugs by the Duterte administration.
And the death of Huang and Cangbo brings to three the number of Chinese nationals killed in the war against illegal drugs.
On July 22 Meco Tan, an alleged Chinese drug trader, was slain after allegedly resisting arrest inside a shabu lab in Binagbayanan, Valenzuela City.
At least nine Chinese nationals, two of them Taiwanese, have been arrested in separate anti-illegal drug operations apart from 31,297 drug dealers and users.
A total of 1,711 others were killed while 54,646 drug pushers and 696,113 users surrendered.
An estimated P3.8 billion worth of shabu and essential chemicals in the production of the illegal substance have been seized by authorities.
Sosa described the dismantling of the shabu lab in Isabela as “a major breakthrough in the relentless campaign against the proliferation of illegal drugs in the region after three months of painstaking intelligence operations.”
