The collared South African national (seated) and seized several packages of shabu from his baggage. Photo courtesy of Customs-NAIA
South African nat’l nabbed in NAIA for P144.3M shabu
ALERT personnel of Ninoy Aquino International Airport-Inter-Agency Anti-Illegal Drug Task Group (NAIA-IADITG), Bureau of Customs (BOC), and the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) intercepted several packages of shabu worth P144.3 million from a South African passenger.
In the official statement, the senior citizen, a South African national is now in the custody of PDEA for further investigation.
Authorities said with advanced intelligence information, BOC, NAIA, and PDEA jointly monitored the arrival of the identified traveler at Ninoy Aquino International Airport.
The suspect arrived from Doha, Qatar, and South Africa as his port of origin – his luggage was subjected to K9 inspection, x-ray scanning, and 100% physical examination, which yielded 21.215 kilos of shabu valued at P144,262,000.
Customs-PDEA investigator said based on the documents recovered, the traveler was identified as a South African and placed under custodial investigation by PDEA and eventual inquest for violation of RA 9165, or the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act and RA 10863 also known as the Customs Modernization And Tariff Act (CMTA). By Jun I. Legaspi and Alfred Dalizon
