7 Chinese nabbed in shabu lab raid

Six Chinese men and a woman were arrested during a raid on a clandestine shabu laboratory in Magalang, Pampanga yesterday.

Chief Superintendent Aaron Aquino, Central Luzon police acting director, identified five of the suspects as Luey Wang, 28; Phillip Chang, 31; Wans Shi Tzu, 42; Alvin Wang, 41, and Susan Wang.

The shabu laboratory was found in one of the buildings on a 3.5-hectare piggery in Sitio Kabayong Saron in Barangay San Ildefonso.

The piggery is about three kilometers from the Central Luzon Philippine National Police Regional Training Center, Central Luzon Drug Rehabilitation Center and the Pampanga Agricultural University.

Senior Superintendent Graciano Mijares, Central Luzon police deputy director for operations, said the raid was based on a search warrant issued by Cabanatuan Regional Trial Court Judge Johnmuel Mendoza.

” We found an underground shabu research laboratory and some finished products in one of the buildings,” said Senior Superin- tendent Wilkins Villanueva, Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency director for the National Capital Region.

Villanueva said the laboratory is used not only to test the quality of shabu, but also refine low-grade shabu.

He said the laboratory could process low- grade shabu worth P600,000 into refined shabu worth P2 million per kilo.

Villanueva said the laboratory was put up near a police training center and a rehabilitation facility to avoid suspicion while the piggery covers the smell of shabu.

An inventory of the items seized in the shabu laboratory is ongoing.