6, including 2 Taiwanese, held for drugs in Boracay

BORACAY ISLAND, Aklan—Six women, two of them Taiwanese, were arrested in separate buy-bust operations in this resort-island on Wednesday.

Taiwanese Chi Ping Chou, 44 and Chia Huei Ma, 27; Vangie Inoc, 34; Jomar Celorico, 20; Rhea Faye Thomas, 23; and Mariel Joyce Lising were detained at the Boracay Tourism Action Center (BTAC) pending filing of charges for possession and selling of illegal drugs at the prosecutor’s office in the capital Kalibo City, Aklan.

Chi and Chia, both natives of Taipei, worked as tour guides in Boracay.

Police placed the two Taiwanese women, as well as Thomas and Lising, under surveillance last year.

Police assets were able to broker a deal with the suspects to buy shabu (methamphetamine chloride).

Past 6 p.m. on Wednesday, a police asset went to the apartment of the two Taiwanese in Barangay (village) Manoc-Manoc to buy P1,000 worth of shabu.

When the women handed the shabu to the asset, agents pounced on the suspects and arrested them.

Another team conducted separate drug busts past 9 p.m. inside a hotel room rented by Thomas and Lising, both from Pasay City.

Recovered from them were shabu worth P250,000, said

Insp. Wilfredo Hofileña, Aklan anti-illegal drugs task force chief.