BAGUIO CITY- Police seized 14 containers of liquid chemical that were concealed in layers of dried banana leaves in Sta. Marcela town, Apayao province on Saturday due to suspicions these were components for manufacturing shabu (methamphetamine hydrochloride).
Village councilman Felicion Labbao Jr. of Barangay Malekkeg alerted the police when he found the containers near his house. The chemical was a mixture of ethyl ether (chloroform), police said.
The amount of chemical recovered could produce 636,000 grams of shabu worth P1.9 billion, police said.
The chemical was sent to Camp Crame for testing. It could be part of materials found in a raid on a suspected shabu laboratory in Lasam town in Cagayan province, Chief Supt. Elmo Sarona, Cordillera police director, said in a statement.
He was referring to the facility shut down by the police in February last year at Lasam, where chemical and equipment worth P3.5 billion were seized.
In July, teams from the Cagayan and Ilocos Norte police unearthed 180 kilograms of shabu at a beach resort in Claveria town, also in Cagayan. The shabu was packed in blue ice boxes buried at the resort./rga
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