By Xinhua,
Manila : High-grade, crystal-clear “ice” (methamphetamine hydrochloride) from abroad is now being sold in the Philippine black market, the chief of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) said on Monday.
It is a sign that illegal drug syndicates have penetrated the country’s defenses, said PDEA chief Dionisio Santiago.
“The shabu (local name of methamphetamine hydrochloride) that is circulating in the market right now is 98-percent pure,” Philippine TV network ABS-CBN citing Santiago reported.
Santiago said that according to PDEA informants, the drug that is circulating in the black market is imported, but the agency is still in the process of validating the information.
Santiago made the revelation after the discovery of 770 kilos of high-grade methamphetamine hydrochloride in the Subic Bay Freeport Zone last week. The haul has a street value of 4.5 billion pesos (103 million U.S. dollars), authorities said.
Santiago said the drugs seized in Subic are “crystal clear” and very similar to the ones being circulated in the black market.
The PDEA chief said international drug syndicates have shifted back to drug exporting after Philippine authorities successfully raided several shabu laboratories in the country.
“There is a shortage (of ‘ice’ production) in the Philippines right now. The quality (is) poor,” Santiago said.
Meanwhile, Santiago said that Subic is not an exception. He said that all seaports in the country are being used by international drug syndicates as transhipment points.
“In our briefings and drug situationers, ports, seaports, and the vast shoreline of the Philippines are always mentioned as the high vulnerability areas of drug shipment,” he said.
Several seizures had also been made in the Manila and Cebu ports, he added.