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The Quezon City police believe they’ve caught a big-fish with the arrest of a Chinese national able to give big discounts on his “wares,” and is able to buy a new car and carry a luxury bag with no apparent day job.
In an interview, Chief Supt. Joel Pagdilao, Quezon City police director, said Qiu Yuqian, 42, a native of Fujian, China, and arrested Sunday night in Barangay East Kamias, appeared to be a “big-time” drug pusher.
Yuqian was arrested in his brand-new Toyota Camry, in a buy-bust operation by the Quezon city police Anti-illegal Drugs Special Operations Group at the corner of Kamias corner K-J streets, as he turned over a kilo’s worth of suspected “shabu” to a poseur-buyer for the price of P1 million.
A search on his car, with conduction sticker YG6072, yielded a Louis Vuitton bag containing three more Ziploc bags, a kilo each, of suspected “shabu” (methamphetamine hydrochloride).
Pagdilao said the total street value of the confiscated narcotics was P16 million.
Pagdilao said Qiu could be part of a well-funded drug ring because he could sell his high-value drugs like shabu at relatively “cheap” prices when other dealers would sell at street value.
“He’s able to sell a kilo of shabu for only P1 million, when their street value is P4 million a kilo,” Pagdilao pointed out.
Too, Pagdilao said Yuqian, who has been in the Philippine since 2010 and has been residing in Tondo, Manila, did not appear to have any legitimate source of income.
“For the past three weeks of surveillance, we haven’t seen him having any legitimate business or work. Yet, he was able to buy a brand new car, registered under his own name,” Pagdilao said.
Qiu was identified by police based on the name indicated in his Chinese passport and immigration records, but his driver’s license identifies him as “Ngan Tip Ho.”
Pagdilao said the operation against Yuqian was an offshoot of the arrest of a Filipino couple last month, who brought along minors during their narcotics deliveries as a “cover story.” Pagdilao said Yuqian was the source of their illegal drugs.
Pagdilao said Yuqian plied the drug trade in Metro Manila, but police would investigate his sources and “linkages” in the narcotics trade across the Philippines.
Yuqian will be facing complaints of narcotics sale and possession. Pagdilao said that the Chinese national would be tried and jailed in the Philippines. “He will only be deported after he serves his sentence,” Pagdilao said. SFM/AU