Meth gangs of China play star role in Phl drug crisis

ARAYAT, Pampanga – It was around 10 a.m. on Sept. 22 when the raid on the pig farm began. Accompanied by fire and sanitation officials, a police team entered the compound at the foot of the extinct volcano Mount Arayat, north of Manila, on the pretext they were conducting a safety inspection.

They didn’t find any pigs. What they did uncover, in a hangar larger than a football field, was a raised platform supporting a diesel generator, an industrial chiller and distillation equipment – all for the production of the highly addictive drug methamphetamine. The industrial-sized laboratory, the police report said, was capable of producing at least 200 kilograms a day of meth, known locally as shabu.

Around that time, a kilogram of meth had a street value of $120,000, the police said.

Philippine law enforcement authorities had been alerted to the farm by locals who reported spotting vehicles with “Chinese-looking men” entering at night and leaving before dawn. During the raid, police arrested Hong Wenzheng, a 39-year-old Chinese national from Fujian province who is now in prison awaiting trial. Four other men

believed to be Chinese nationals escaped and are the target of a manhunt.

The piggery bust points to an uncomfortable truth for President Duterte as he wages his war on drugs: The problem he’s fighting is largely made in China, the country he is embracing as a potential ally at the expense of longstanding ties with the US.

The arrest of Hong, who has pleaded not guilty, added to the ranks of Chinese nationals seized in the Philippines on narcotics charges. Of 77 foreign nationals arrested for meth- related drug offenses between January 2015 and mid-August 2016, nearly two- thirds were Chinese and almost a quarter were Taiwanese or Hong Kong residents, according to the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA).

Known in the trade as “cooks” and “chemists,” meth production experts are flown into the Philippines from Greater China by drug syndicates to work at labs like the one at Mount Arayat. China isn’t only a source of meth expertise – it is also the biggest source of the meth and of the precursor chemicals used to produce the synthetic drug that are being smuggled into the Philippines, according to local drug enforcement officials.

“It’s safe to say that the majority of the meth we have comes from China,” said PDEA spokesman Derrick Carreon.

Warming to China

China’s dominant role in the Philippine meth trade has not dissuaded President Duterte from cozying up to Beijing, even as he declares drugs to be his country’s greatest scourge. Duterte is waging a brutal anti- narcotics campaign that has killed more than 2,000 people and led to the arrest of more than 38,000. Police are investigating some 3,000 more deaths.

During a trip to Beijing in October, Duterte announced his “separation” from the United States and declared that he had realigned with China, casting doubt on the almost seven-decade alliance between Washington and Manila.

The pivot to Beijing has bewildered some drug-control officials at home, who say China’s leaders have provided little help over the years in stemming the flow of drugs into the Philippines.

“It seems there’s very little action on the part of the government of China,” said Richard Fadullon, senior deputy state prosecutor and chairman of the drugs task force at the Department of Justice. “You’d think that somehow it would be a cause for concern, but there doesn’t seem to be that kind of reaction.”

Duterte’s office did not respond to questions from Reuters.

As he warms to China, Duterte is also spurning the country that is the primary source of aid and expertise to Manila in its battle against drugs – the United States.

The US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) provides training and intelligence to drug authorities across the Philippines and supports an interagency task group at the international airport in the capital aimed at countering trafficking. Carreon said the DEA had recently helped uncover six separate incidents of cocaine smuggling at the airport.

“All my friends are in the US DEA,” said one senior Philippine drug control official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “Most information comes from the US DEA.”

That may change. Saying it was “deeply concerned” by reports of extrajudicial killings in Duterte’s crackdown, the United States recently said it was shifting $5 million in funding for Philippine law enforcement away from police drug-control programs.

Skeptical drug officials

Since taking office on June 30, Duterte has aimed some criticism at China. He suggested after the raid on the Arayat meth lab in late September that if Beijing considered his country a friend, China should act to stem the flow of drugs.

In August, his government summoned the Chinese ambassador to explain the supply of narcotics from China to the Philippines.

Foreign Affairs Secretary Perfecto Yasay Jr. told Reuters

at the time that China’s ambassador to Manila, Zhao Jianhua, had rejected the charge.

“I told him these reports are based on intelligence information, they have been validated so far as we are concerned,” Yasay said.

Still, Duterte has pointed to what he says is a willingness in Beijing to help Manila in its battle against drugs. And, since visiting Beijing in October, he has not pressed the issue of drugs and precursors flowing from China.

During that trip, Duterte and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed to beef up exchanges of intelligence, know-how and technology in fighting drug crimes, and to set up a mechanism for joint investigation of drug cases. In a joint communiqué, the Philippines thanked China for an offer to donate drug detection equipment and help with training.

“China understands and supports the Philippines’ policy under the leadership of President Duterte to fight against drugs, and is willing to proactively cooperate against drugs with the Philippines,” the Chinese Foreign Ministry said in response to questions from Reuters.

Some Philippine drug officials scoff at China’s offers of assistance. “I almost fell off my chair when I heard that China would be helping the Philippines with its drug problem,” said a Department of Justice official who has been dealing with drug crimes for many years and has experienced little cooperation from Beijing.

In an interview, Philippine National Police spokesman Dionardo Carlos said: “We are not aware of any high-profile drug cooperation between China and the Philippines since the President’s visit to Beijing.”

Jeremy Douglas, the regional representative of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) for Southeast Asia and the Pacific, says there is “some cooperation and information exchange” taking place between the two countries on regional drug and precursor trafficking. “But we understand it is on a case by case basis and is not systematic or routine,” he said. “The only way to make a dent in the trade is to target those that run the business.”

Duterte regularly says he will hunt down drug lords. In October, the police announced they were launching a new phase in the drug crackdown that would focus on “high value” targets. But to date, the President’s campaign has almost exclusively targeted users and small-time pushers in the country’s poorest neighborhoods, not the drug barons supplying them with meth.

Like whack-a-mole

China has at times moved against the production of meth at large labs in its southern provinces. Thousands of suspects were detained in 2014, for instance, during an anti- drug campaign called “Thunder Operations” in Guangdong province.

Despite these efforts, China remains the biggest source of precursors for meth production across Asia. Globally, the bulk of the seizures of raw ephedrine in 2014 was reported by China, with 31.6 tons, according to the International Narcotics Control Board in Vienna. This was followed by the Philippines with 510 kg, which the UNODC believes came mainly from China.

The amount seized in the Philippines is “a proverbial drop in the ocean,” said the UNODC’s Douglas.

As they step up their efforts against meth production, local drug enforcement officials say they expect traffickers to move some operations to “floating labs,” where meth is cooked on boats moored off the coast.

In July, four Hong Kong residents were arrested on a fishing boat anchored in Subic Bay, once the site of a US naval base. The men have denied charges of producing and selling meth, and are in jail awaiting trial.

This whack-a-mole pursuit of the Chinese meth gangs won’t work, Fadullon said.

“They’ll just keep on cropping up in different areas which are least expected by the authorities.”

If the Duterte government wants to get meth off the streets, he said, “eventually they will have to go to the source and come up with high- level discussions on how to put a stop to this – talking with the Chinese government. –