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The chief of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) said they are checking if the Chinese suspect arrested in Marilao, Bulacan for keeping an illegal drug warehouse has connections with the one they arrested in Laguna last Wednesday.

Director General Wilkins Villanueva said suspect, Yuwen Cai, may be connected to an international drug trafficking organization and his house is being used as warehouse of imported illegal drugs.

“If you can see the area is convenient as warehouse because who will know that one of your neighbors is keeping a 700 kilo (of shabu)… ideal for a warehouse and ideal for transportation because there is not much checkpoints,” Villanueva said.

The PDEA chief said they will check their matrix to find if Cai is connected with another Chinese suspect, Samson Tan, who converted his house into a clandestine laboratory in Binan City, Laguna.

Tan was arrested on Wednesday by the operatives of PDEA during a buy bust operation in Laguna were they seized P7.4 million worth of shabu.

“We will look into our matrix if they are connected because it is possible that from him (Tan) it will go here (in Bulacan) or from importation it will go in the warehouse then transported to Manila, (Region) 4A, Cebu, Mindanao,” Villanueva said.

He said with the amount of shabu found, it is possible that only bulk orders are being accepted in the warehouse.

Found inside Cai’s house during the operation were 756 kilos of shabu worth P5.1 billion.

Unlike previous operations where it was placed in boxes of tea bags with Chinese marking, the illegal drugs were placed inside boxes of biscuits, which is a Thailand brand.

Philippine National Police (PNP) chief General Archie Francisco Gamboa said this could be a new tactic.

“But we will conduct intelligence work,” Gamboa said.

Gamboa said they found the warehouse through a drug link they are monitoring.

“We are following a drug link which actually led here. There was a necessity to conduct surveillance because maybe something was inside and it did… it turned out there (illegal drugs) inside,” Gamboa said.

“We have a link diagram and I cannot divulge anything because we are conducting follow up but from here you can pick up a lot of personalities and ideas on how they do it and then from there the police will work on it,” he added.

The PNP- Drug Enforcement Group (DEG) is investigating if the illegal drugs came from the Golden Triangle syndicate which is based in China and Hong Kong. Ella Dionisio/DMS