Customs authorities at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) confiscated some 40 kilograms of methamphetamine hydrochloride or shabu worth P400 million placed inside a water pump coming from Taipei via Hong Kong on December 28, 2014.
The contraband had remained at the Naia People’s Air Cargo warehouse under surveillance by the agents of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) and the bureau.
In their report to Customs District Collector Edgar Macabeo by Customs Anti Illegal Drug Executive Officer Sherwin Andrada and NAIA customs police head Lt. Reggie Tuason, the shipment was put on high alert after finding that four boxes declared as water pumps showed questionable images under X-ray inspection.
Pineda said the consignee, identified as Danilo Pineda of Manila denied knowledge of the illegal drug but admitted being instructed by a certain “sir Bebot” to process the airway bill.
Andrada said that the drugs were packed in a black plastic bag inside a water pump to look like an ordinary cargo.
Sources in anti-drug operations have disclosed that high-grade shabu fetches P10 million per kilo or P10,000 per gram while the common variant costs P1,000 to P1,500 per gram.
Under waterfron regulations, questionable shipments have “derogatory information” received by the Customs’ Anti-Illegal Drug Task Force.
Last week, the bureau confiscated 660 kg of counterfeit medicines worth millions of pesos.
The shipment of 17 pallets arrived Manila from Bangkok, Thailand which became part of last year’s haul of an estimated P1-billion worth of various illegal, fake or controlled drugs and substances, including ‘shabu’, marijuana, ‘Ecstacy’, Valium, Ativan, Dormicum, Rivotril, Alprazolam, Ritalin, and other unlabeled tablets.