Busted Chinese yield ‘narco-list’

INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines—While the country may be focused on the so-called “Napolist,” the Quezon City Police District (QCPD) believes it has come across a Chinese “narco-list.”

The QCPD said it had begun poring over the contents of a notebook obtained from the two Chinese nationals who were arrested in a P25-million drug bust Sunday and that a follow-up operation led to a shootout that killed two of the foreigners’ “street-level dealers” on Tuesday.

Senior Insp. Roberto Razon, head of the District Anti-Illegal Drugs (DAID) unit, said the notebook seized from drug trafficking suspects Benson Lao and Benedict Ong could hold the key to dismantling their distribution network in Metro Manila, particularly in Batasan Hills and Fairview.

The notebook looked quite ordinary—the cover featuring the cartoon drawing of a hooded girl handing a basket of flowers to a bear—but Razon said it may contain “the names of their clients or records of their transactions.”

The entries appeared to be in code and “only three pages had Chinese writing in them,” the official told the Inquirer on Tuesday.

The notebook was found in the car that Lao and Ong were using when they were arrested in a buy-bust operation late Sunday night in Barangay (village) North Fairview. The QCPD said they yielded five kilos of “shabu” worth P25 million.

On Tuesday, a follow-up operation by the QCPD-DAID ended in a shootout that killed two suspected drug dealers.

One of the two slain suspects was identified only as “Macmac” and bore various tattoos that read: “Anne,” “Sputnik,” “Kymer,” “Simon,” “Joey,” “True Brown Style” and “Only God can judge me, 1990.” The other was about 5’5” in height, between 30 and 35 years old, fair, slim and wearing a red shirt and white short pants.

According to Razon, “these are the two Chinese suspects’ street-level distributors. They sell shabu only up to 50 grams maximum.”

The shootout happened around 2:30 a.m. on Katuparan Street in Barangay Commonwealth, after the suspects realized that they were being entrapped by the police, said PO2 Jogene Hernandez, the case investigator.

Hernandez said the suspects had just handed over 50 grams of shabu worth P100,000 when they caught the “signal” being given by an undercover policeman for his colleagues to move in for the arrest.

The suspects drew .45-cal. and .38-cal. pistols and started shooting at a QCPD-DAID team, which fired back and shot them dead.

Two plastic pouches of dried marijuana leaves were also found inside the sling bag carried by one of the slain suspects, Hernandez said.