The P6.8 billion worth of shabu that entered the Manila International Container Port undetected was smuggled in through the use of a new modus operandi, Malacañang said Monday.
Palace Spokesman Harry Roque said the shabu slipped past Customs through the use of a magnetic lifter that could not be detected by X-ray machines.
He told reporters Customs was doing everything to stop the entry of illegal drugs but the new scheme caught the agency and the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency flat-footed because it was a new way of smuggling drugs into the country.
In other developments:
• Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra has ordered the National Bureau of Investigation to conduct a parallel investigation into the recent entry of the P6.8 billion worth of shabu that slipped past Customs.
Guevarra said he had ordered NBI director Dante Gierran to create a team to probe how the shipment was successfully smuggled in.
• The House of Representatives’ committee on dangerous drugs hopes to unmask the identities of certain Customs officials in cahoots with big-time drug lords over the entry of the P6.8 billion worth of shabu last week, an official said Monday.
Surigao del Norte Rep. Robert Ace Barbers, the panel’s chairman, made the statement as his committee will conduct today, Tuesday, its inquiry into the shabu shipment.
• Senator Panfilo Lacson on Sunday said the people who smuggled the shabu into the country should drown in the floods inundating Metro Manila.
Senator Aquilino Pimentel III said the government should probe the officials who failed to intercept the smuggled shabu.
Roque said the entry of the 1,000 kilos of shabu worth P6.8 billion was proof of the “sophistication” of drug traffickers
He said President Rodrigo Duterte expected Customs to take measures to run after those behind the smuggling.
“He wants to know who’s behind the importation and he’s raring to apply the full force of the law against those behind these importations,” Roque said.
Last week Customs seized P6.8 billion worth of shabu smuggled by an international drug syndicate into the country. PDEA agents found magnetic scrap filters where the drugs were supposedly hidden during a warehouse raid in Cavite.
Roque said Customs must boost its intelligence gathering and work closely with PDEA to stop the shipment of illegal drugs into the country. A review of Customs’ inspection procedures should also be considered, he said. With Rey E. Requejo, Maricel V. Cruz, and Macon Ramos-Araneta
