ZAMBOANGA CITY (Mindanao Examiner / Mar. 6, 2014) – Philippine authorities have seized a cargo of suspected illegal drugs on Thursday at the Zamboanga City airport, officials said.
Officials said the cargo contained a kilo of shabu or methamphetamine hydrochloride which is also known as “poor man’s cocaine.”
The cargo, which came from Caloocan City, was shipped through LBC Express and bound for Tawi-Tawi, when intercepted during a routine security inspection.
It was consigned to Dayang Askali and shipped by Walter Aquino. Tawi-Tawi is one of 5 provinces under the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao in the southern Philippines.
Officials said the drugs were hidden with other items in the box when it was discovered by alert airport security. The drugs were passed off as a corn starch.
It was not immediately known whether the names of the consignee and its sender are fictitious or not, but police and other law enforcement agencies have began investigating the seizure of the illegal cargo.
Authorities were also investigating how the cargo managed to pass through a supposed tight security at the airport in Manila. It was not the first time such drug cargo had been intercepted at the local airport and previous haul yielded millions of pesos worth of shabu and even weapons’ spare parts and munitions.
Despite being a small airport, local aviation security personnel have excelled tremendously as one of the best in the southern Philippines.
Zamboanga Mayor Maria Isabelle Salazar also commended law enforcement units involved in the seizure of the drugs.
Among the agencies were the Office for Transportation Security of the Department of Transportation and Communications, Security and Intelligence Service of the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines, Bureau of Customs, National Bureau of Investigation, Regional Intelligence of the Western Mindanao Police Office, Regional Public Safety Battalion, Task Force Zamboanga, Special Action Force, Zamboanga City Police Office and the City Anti-Illegal Drugs Special Operations Task Force.(Mindanao Examiner)
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