PDEA tags cops in facilitation of P6.8 billion shabu shipment

MANILA, Philippines — The head of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) has tagged a police official and three other policemen as part of the group that facilitated the smuggling of P6.8 billion worth of shabu that slipped past the Bureau of Customs and ended up in a Cavite warehouse.

PDEA director general Aaron Aquino had earlier relieved Ismael Fajardo, PDEA deputy director general for administration, who was implicated in the shabu shipment. 

Aquino said they are now investigating the four active duty police officers on their participation in the smuggling. 

Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Director General Oscar Albayalde said they will investigate the claim of the PDEA that four policemen were involved in the latest reported shabu smuggling.

Albayalde said he will coordinate with PDEA chief Aquino on the identities of the four lawmen, one of whom is an official.

“I can assure you we will investigate these people,” he said yesterday at a news briefing in Camp Crame, Quezon City.

Aquino revealed they are validating reports that four policemen took part in the smuggling of the drugs believed to have been concealed in four magnetic lifters discovered in a warehouse in General Mariano Alvarez, Cavite.

Albayalde said he has no information on the alleged involvement of dismissed Sr. Supt. Eduardo Acierto in drug smuggling.

“I don’t know. I never worked with Acierto,” he said.

Acierto was among the officials dismissed from the service last month for the anomalous issuance of licenses for AK-47 rifles.

Fajardo’s alleged involvement in the shabu shipment surfaced as the House of Representatives and the Senate continued their respective hearings on the shabu shipments. 

Fajardo, Custom’s intelligence officer Jimmy Guban and Acierto are now considered as the prominent figures behind the shipment.

The PDEA chief said that it is “very clear” that Guban facilitated the shipment and that Fajardo and Acierto were on the same level of involvement. 

The trio of Fajardo, Guban and Acierto initially investigated the shipments as they were the ones who got the raw information on the case. 

The three men and other people, now subject of the investigation, even supposedly met at least four to five times to discuss the shabu shipments.

The PDEA chief questioned why the four empty magnetic lifters found in Cavite were able to slip through Customs if Guban, Acierto and Fajardo were investigating the drug smuggling. 

He lamented that authorities would not even know about the magnetic lifters and the ton of shabu these contained if not for information given by the caretaker of the warehouse who reported the incident.

It was later found that Guban and Acierto knew and even facilitated the shipment supposedly containing a ton of shabu, which is now missing, the PDEA chief claimed. 

Guban supposedly recommended SMYD Trading as the “consignee-for-hire” used in the missing P6.8-billion shabu and Acierto was allegedly the one who ordered the magnetic lifters that contained the contraband, according to Aquino. 

Guban also took trips tracing the exact route of shipment, from Vietnam, to Malaysia and Hong Kong. 

The National Bureau of Investigation and the agency’s Internal Affairs Service have been tapped to determine Fajardo’s exact participation. A lifestyle check would also be conducted. 

Fajardo was officially relieved from his post on Sept. 14 and is set to be replaced by retired Army Col. Ricardo Santiago, a batchmate of Aquino in Philippine Military Academy Class of 1985. 

Aquino said he has talked to Fajardo, who denied involvement and claimed that he was blindsided by Guban.

While it is clear that the trio was involved in the shabu shipment, Aquino said they have yet to determine if they were also involved in the distribution of the missing shabu.

Operatives have been able to track down the shabu but only recovered one kilogram of the illegal drug, as well as plastic, aluminium foil and other wrappings used to hide it. 

Aquino refused to disclose the location where the wrappings and the kilo of shabu were found, saying this is still subject to further investigation.

The P6.8-billion shabu shipment came on the heels of the earlier seizure of two magnetic lifters that contained 355 kilos of shabu worth P2.4 billion at the Port of Manila. 

The PDEA chief said the seizure at the Manila port was just a diversionary tactic used by international drug syndicates, wherein they would let authorities catch small fry and have bigger shipments go through the back door.

“That is exactly the modus of the drug syndicates. Magpapahuli sila tapos magpapalusot,” he said. 

Surigao del Norte Rep. Robert Ace Barbers said yesterday that the ombudsman dismissed Acierto last month. 

Barbers, who chairs the House of Representatives committee on dangerous drugs, said the officer’s dismissal was in connection with the anomalous issuance of licenses for 1,400 pieces AK-47 assault rifles between 2011 and 2013. Some of the rifles were later seized from communist rebels in Mindanao.

Barbers said his committee would invite Acierto again to its next hearing on the case of the missing shabu shipment.

The officer did not show up at the panel’s third hearing on Thursday.

Barbers said Acierto, Fajardo and Guban are allegedly involved in the illegal drugs shipment.

Based on the Barbers committee’s inquiry, Fajardo, Acierto and Guban shared intelligence information on a shabu cargo that was supposedly arriving last month.

According to Guban, they wanted to trap those behind the shipment.  – With Jess Diaz, Emmanuel Tupas