3 int’l drug rings operating here – PDEA
Three international drug rings are the major sources of shabu in the country.
This was confirmed yesterday by the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA), naming the three transnational drug trafficking organizations (DTOs) with major illegal transactions locally as the United Bamboo Gang (Bamboo Triad); 14K Triad or Hongkong Triad; and Sun Yee On Triad.
PDEA Director-General Aaron Aquino branded them as three of the most powerful DTOs involved in the global illegal drug market.
These triads, who have their roots in dialect groups, trade guilds or political movements are now responsible for much of the world’s drug trafficking and vice establishments.
“The Bamboo Triad, which is based in Taiwan, was formed during the 1950s. Their members are engaged in almost every illegal activity imaginable, from prostitution, gambling and extortion, to gunrunning, human trafficking and illegal drug smuggling on a worldwide scale,” Aquino said.
The triad members are actively operating in the United States of America, Canada, Britain, France and Australia, as well as in virtually every country in Asia, including the Philippines. Aquino said the 14K Triad was founded in Guangzhou, China, in 1945 as an anti-communist task force. Four years later, it relocated to Hong Kong, following the nationalist defeat.
Aquino said that at present, 14K Triad exerts considerable influence over West Kowloon, Yuen Long and Kwun Tong as it is engaged in large-scale drug-trafficking around the world.
Sun Yee On Triad started in Hongkong in 1919 and is currently based in mainland China and Macau, with more than 55,000 members worldwide.
Aquino said that Sun Yee On Triad is said to be the most organized and wealthiest triad society.
He said the 14K and Sun Yee On Triads are arch-rivals, with a propensity for violence.
Both groups are supplying Mexico’s Sinaloa Drug Cartel--a dangerously powerful international drug trafficking organization based in Mexico City--with raw materials needed to manufacture shabu, as demand skyrockets.
Ties between these triads and Sinaloa cartel were outlined in a report by the Mexican Attorney General’s Office in 2013.
Details of the Sinaloa Drug Cartel’s connection in the country was discovered in the wake of the confiscation of some P420 million worth of shabu during a joint PDEA-PNP Christmas Day raid in 2013 at a game fowl ranch in Lipa City, Batangas.
On January 6 and 13, 2012, three clandestine shabu laboratories were dismantled in Ayala Alabang Village, Muntinlupa City.
Seized during the operation were unfinished shabu and controlled precursors and essential chemicals (CPECs) used in producing shabu worth P53 million.
“Intelligence reports indicated the participation of 14K Triad in the dismantled shabu laboratories based on various financial documents such as money transfer receipts, bank accounts, deposit slips of various banks and telegraph transfer receipts to Mexico that were recovered in the operation,” Aquino noted.
He said these DTOs can ship up to three tons of shabu into the country, either through shipside smuggling in the high seas, or airports and seaports.
The Chinese triads found the Philippines as a possible market for shabu because of the country’s vulnerability, particularly its porous borders and vast coastlines, a factor in the undetected movement of illegal drugs through shipment.
Aquino said that PDEA and other law enforcement agencies are gaining ground on the members of DTOs with the recent arrests of Chinese nationals during antidrug operations.
The Ninoy Aquino International Airport Inter-Agency Drug Interdiction Task Group (NAIA-IADITG) led by PDEA is strengthening its efforts to intercept the trafficking and transit of illegal drugs in the country’s major airports.