R5.7-M cocaine powder found in Batanes waters

The alarming "floating cocaine" discovery on the Philippine shores has already reached Batanes, the country's northernmost province, after a kilo of the pulverized drugs worth

R5.7 million was found in the seawaters of Basco town Tuesday afternoon.

Fisherman Roger Gabotero, of Barangay Kayhuvukan, Basco, was fishing in the seawaters of Basco, near the Naidi Lighthouse when he discovered the three suspicious plastic packages at around 3:20 p.m.

The first package was sealed with white plastic, the second with green foil marked with “Guanyinwang” in a refined Chinese tea packaging, and the third with transparent vacuum sealed plastic with red letter “A” marking.

Gabotero opened the packages and found that the one placed in the tea packaging contained “powdery white substances” which he suspects as cocaine, said Police Colonel Merwin Quarteros, chief of the Batanes Provincial Police Office.

Gabotero immediately went ashore and turned over the three packages to the Batanes Provincial Police Office.

Upon examination, investigators confirmed that the powdery substance was cocaine.

Police Brigadier General Jose Mario Espino, regional director of the Cagayan Valley Police Regional Office (PRO-2), commended Gabotero for turning over to police the dangerous drugs.

“The recovered cocaine is a result of the massive information drive and public awareness of the PNP [Philippine National Police]’s campaign against illegal drugs,” Espino said.

He ordered the Basco Police Station to “scour the part of the sea and its seashore for possible recovery of additional items.”

On February 5, 2018, two fishermen from Barangay Dipudo in Divilacan, Isabela, found a container with 18.84 kilograms of cocaine worth R79 million along the village seashore.

The discovery in Batanes was the latest in a series of “floating cocaine” sightings in the Philippine seas.

From February to April, a total of 228 kilos of cocaine worth R1.2 billion have already been recovered by the authorities in the eastern seaboard of the country.

Police General Oscar Albayalde, PNP Chief, had earlier expressed belief that the cocaine being washed ashore in the Philippines must have been dumped by foreign drug syndicates involved in a big drug shipment that was busted by the Australian authorities last year.

They are believed to have come from South America, he said.