PDEA: P518-M LAUNDERED DRUG MONEY SEIZED SINCE 2022
A TOTAL of P518,480,814.39 worth of assets and properties of suspected drug lords and their ilk in the country, all tagged as “proceeds” of their illegal activities have been seized by the Marcos government from 2022 to 2024, the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency announced yesterday.
PDEA chair Director General Moro Virgilio M. Lazo said those “drug proceeds” have been subjected to civil forfeiture proceedings and are already covered with freeze order issued by the Court of Appeals.
Out of the figure, P4,039,080 worth of parcels of land, motor vehicles and firearms belonging to drug money launderers were forfeited in favor of the government, while cash in bank accounts, vehicles and plots of lands amounting to P514,441,734.39 were either frozen or preserved.
The portions of said drug money were the subject of 28 money laundering cases referred by the PDEA to the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) for financial investigation. A total of 41 cases were also filed before the Department of Justice during the 2-year period.
In a statement, the agency said the institutionalization of PDEA Deputized Anti-Money Laundering Council Financial Investigators or DAFIs tasked to investigate monetary instruments such as bank accounts and insurance policies believed to be used to launder drug money, “was a real shot in the arm for the country’s drug money laundering investigations previously done by a limited number of AMLC investigators.”
