Chinese drug dealer flees, leaves behind P100M worth of shabu

A police technician gets a scoop of shabu, methamphetamine hydrochloride, seized from an earlier drug raid. NIÑO JESUS ORBETA/INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

Anti-narcotics operatives are hunting for a Chinese national who eluded arrest in a foiled drug deal involving P100-million worth of “shabu” Wednesday night.

Police said Mikko Tiu Tan fled when he sensed the entrapment operation and left his car in a Quezon City subdivision. The car yielded 20 kilos of methamphetamine hydrochloride worth P100 million.

Chief Inspector Roque Merdegia, of the Philippine National Police’s Anti-Illegal Drugs Special Operations Task Force (AIDSOTF), said Tan probably noticed that police were tailing him on his way to the supposed meeting place with the poseur-buyer in Fairview.

The exchange was supposed to take place at 10 p.m.

Tan abandoned his car, which bore the licence plate “WOL 771,” inside a subdivision in Barangay (village) Sta. Monica, Quezon City.

“(Tan) might have been picked up by an accomplice,” said Merdegia.

Merdegia said the confiscated drugs appeared to be smuggled from China.

The AIDSOTF official said Tan, who had been under surveillance since July, was linked to a local drug syndicate.

“Tan seems to be a new player but he might have used an alias as we suspect that he had been entering drug deals before,” he added.

It took the AIDSOTF and PDEA months to set up an entrapment because drug suspects preferred to transact through banks deposits.

AIDSOTF head Senior Superintendent Antonio Gardiola Jr. said the drug deal was thwarted by joint forces of the PNP and the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency. CB