'Chinese couple involved in smuggling of corals now abroad'

ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines  – Police here disclosed yesterday that the Chinese couple implicated in the alleged smuggling of endangered corals and shells have reportedly slipped out of the country.

Zamboanga City police chief Senior Superintendent Edwin de Ocampo said Olivia Lim-Li and her husband Li Yu Ming alias Joe Pring, owner of the Lim & Li Trading, have already abandoned their house in Tetuan.

“They’re no longer there. We can’t say if they’re in another place or in another country,” De Ocampo said.

Police sources said the couple went into hiding even before the Senate issued the subpoena and arrest warrants after they were cited for contempt for failing to attend the public hearing conducted by the Senate committee on environment and natural resources.

The source said the couple even talked with a police official last week before they allegedly fled the country.

Chief Superintendent Elpedio de Asis, Western Mindanao police director, said they have been looking for the suspects and a task group was formed to track them down.

De Asis said they have coordinated with the Bureau of Immigration to place the couple on the bureau’s blacklist to prevent them from slipping out of the country.

The police Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) has not filed a single case against the Li couple, two weeks after they were implicated in the attempt to smuggle an estimated 40 tons of assorted corals and shells that were discovered at a local warehouse.

Zamboanga CIDG director Superintendent Mario Rariza said they are waiting for the results of the inventory of the recovered contraband at Yuscom warehouse in Barangay San Roque last June 4 before they could file the charges against the Li couple.

“As much as possible we want an airtight case to be filed against the subjects,” Rariza said, explaining that the team conducting the inventory have so far accounted for about 35 percent of the total haul.

Rariza said they are still gathering more evidence that will implicate several more personalities involved in the recent recovery of a big volume of prohibited marine products. – With Evelyn Macairan