Customs agents at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport on Monday seized a smuggled shipment of the party drug ecstasy worth P4.9 million.
Operatives of the Customs Port of NAIA also arrested one Ronron Salonga, the claimant of the package containing 2,878 tablets of ecstasy.
The bureau conducted a controlled delivery operation with help from the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency and the NAIA Inter-Agency Drug
Interdiction Task Group resulting in the arrest of Salonga at the Manila Central Post Office.
The shipment was declared as women and kid clothes and shoes, a clear case of technical smuggling. It was sent by a certain “Mary Lumbao Edward” from the Netherlands and consigned to a resident of Malate, Manila.
Prior to the entrapment operation, Customs placed the shipment under profiling and examination. The authorities discovered 12 packs of ecstasy tablets with green and gold colors concealed at the package.
“Subsequent chemical laboratory analysis of PDEA confirmed the seized tablets were positive as ecstasy,” said a Customs examiner.
Salonga and the seized prohibited substance are now in the custody of PDEA.
Last week, Customs and anti-narcotics agents arrested two claimants of an ecstasy shipment, also during a controlled delivery operation in Davao City.