When Tina Cimeni was approached by two Chinese men looking for an apartment sometime in June, it never crossed her mind that they would be the subject of police surveillance later on.
“When they came to us, they said they had a business in Baclaran—a stall selling shoes and bags—that’s it,” said the Caloocan City resident who rents out apartments in Barangay 60, in an interview with the Inquirer Saturday.
It turned out that the two tenants she admitted—Wang Yong Gui, 30; and Dong Jin Chen, 29—were suppliers of illegal drugs, according to the police.
The two Chinese nationals from Fookien province were arrested in a buy-bust operation in San Juan City on Thursday.
In a follow-up operation Friday night, police said they recovered another cache of methamphetamine hydrochloride or “shabu” with an estimated street value of P48 million from the suspects’ apartment unit on Aquino Street corner 10th Avenue, Caloocan.
The latest find was on top of the two kilos of shabu worth about P12 million that were seized in Thursday’s drug bust.
Senior Insp. Virgilio Santiago, chief of the Eastern Police District’s anti-illegal drugs unit, said the shabu found at the apartment weighed a total of about 8 kilos.
The 10:30 p.m. search was carried out on a warrant issued by Executive Judge Fernando Sagun Jr. of Quezon City Regional Trial Court – Branch 78, Santiago said.