Chinese tip key to P15-M ‘shabu’ bust

A Chinese national who arrived in the country three weeks ago yielded 15 kilos of “shabu” in a buy-bust operation Friday night in Pasay City, police said.

“We didn’t know he would carry that much. We had a lucky break,” Supt. Lorenzo Trajano of the Southern Police District said of the arrest of Zhou Jianguo, 36.

Another Chinese provided the tip that led to the entrapment, according to Trajano. “Actually, (the informant) was there during the operation but I can’t elaborate on that,” he said in an interview on Saturday.

Described as a native of Fujian, China, Zhou was arrested after handing over a kilo of the illegal drug to a poseur buyer near a restaurant at the corner of Roxas Boulevard and Gil Puyat Avenue around 6:30 p.m.

The transaction took place inside the suspect’s Hyundai Tucson (NIC-513). The buyer opened the door as a signal for the rest of the arrest team to move in, said Trajano who heads the SPD’s Anti-Illegal Drugs-Special Operation Task Group.

A search conducted on the vehicle found 14 more plastic bags of shabu, said Senior Supt. Joel Doria, chief of the Pasay police which assisted the SPD team in the operation.

The street value of the total drug haul could go as high as P15 million, at P1 million per kilo, Trajano said.

According to Doria, the suspect, whose interrogation required an interpreter, said he stayed in Sampaloc, Manila, after arriving in the country on Sept. 7. Investigators are looking into his possible links to an international drug syndicate.

Zhou remained in SPD’s custody on Saturday to face charges for violation of the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act, while the recovered drugs were brought to the district command’s crime lab for examination.