WE all know the proverb “necessity is the mother of invention.” But what if that necessity is fueled by addiction? Would ingenuity be magnified also?
This seems to be the case with illegal drugs, judging from the wide-ranging methods narcotic drugs are being shipped into the country, and how they are being intercepted by authorities at Philippine ports. It is evident that drug syndicates have been the most ingenious at subterfuge to conceal their illicit trade.
Ninoy Aquino International Airport (Naia) District Customs Collector Carmelita “Mimel” Talusan showed the BusinessMirror the many ways syndicates have attempted to sneak in their illicit products in the course of a year.
Displayed at her headquarters across the Nayong Pilipino are exhibits of cleverly concealed shabu, heroin, cocaine and ecstasy, the so-called party drugs. The exhibits show where these items were hidden: in the innards of a computer central processing unit (CPU); inside pillows or boxes of imported corn cereals; in the soles of rubber shoes, or the cavity of baby-size dolls.
Mother Mary not spared
Syndicates have even shown their contempt of the Blessed Virgin Mary by using her framed photograph as cover of a box, thinking the pious might have second thoughts about conducting a search. But beneath the ill-conceived idea is the shabu.
Sometimes, even heroin is sewn into leather portfolio, or mixed among piles of thick sports socks. One of the most ingenious ways was how heroin was found inside a rectangular metal lighter.
Referred to in the streets as shabu, this white crystalline substance that goes by its medical tag, methamphetamine hydrochloride, is known by several names. It is also crystal, meth, ice, speed, crank, tweak, chalk, Tina and gak. Persons who use them are said to be tweaking, spun out or scattered. Nicknames for combining meth with other drugs include twisters, fire and shabu.
Shabu, also known as the poor man’s cocaine, is a stimulant that used to be “cheap,” but because of its popularity has attained the status of a cult drug, whose price has skyrocketed,” Talusan said.
‘Mule’
Another ranking Customs official, Emy Balatbat, who used to be an examiner at the airport arrival area, tells of a man who swallowed heroin encased in capsules.
“That is one of the hardest to detect. Fortunately, our drug agents were tipped off by the Interpol [International Police],” she said. “The man was subjected to x-ray and they found the capsules’ image in his stomach.”
The incident happened last year, when the rubber pellets were found inside a suspected Colombian drug courier, Alberto Pedraza Quijano. The 67-year-old passenger arrived in the Philippines via Emirates Airlines Flight EK332 from Dubai.
Acting on a report from US Homeland Security Investigation-Manila Attaché Office, combined elements from the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA), Bureaus of Immigration, Customs, the Philippine National Police, Airport Police, National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) and the Office of the Transport Security (OTS) arrested Quijano during an airport interdiction operation.
Balatbat said the drug agents pumped out Quijano’s stomach and yielded 79 pieces of elongated rubber pellets containing suspected cocaine. The drugs, weighing approximately 1.185 kilograms, had an estimated market value of P8.9 million.
The look
She said many of the Customs employees are now trained in “profiling” passengers. “We can tell just by looking at them whether they look guilty or are carrying some illegal imports,” she said, but refused to reveal how they do it.
“Some of us are able to tell [from experience] a guilty person [or one possessing] some contraband. But others were learned through seminars,” she added.
Talusan, who rose from the ranks as a Customs examiner at the Naia, said many of the seized shabu were intercepted at the Central Mail Exchange Center (Cemec), a huge building between the Naia and the Manila Domestic Airport, where thousands of parcels and boxes, flown in aboard commercial airliners, arrive daily from all corners of the globe.
The boxes and parcels are in separate cargo containers. Upon unloading, the containers are towed by a tug directly from the planes to Cemec, under heavy guard.
X-ray power
“Drugs in powder form, like heroin or cocaine, are casually inserted in Manila envelopes to make it appear that these contain nothing but letters,” Talusan said, adding that powdered drugs do not bulge and are therefore barely noticeable.
She said the four Naia passenger terminals have their own upgraded x-ray machines and detectors. “Pieces of luggage from countries suspected of being sources of the drugs are x-rayed first before they are placed in moving conveyors. These countries are China, the United States and some parts of Africa,” Talusan said.
“Any piece of luggage that shows a dark, mysterious shadow are suspects and marked with a letter ‘X,’” she said. “Once the luggage comes up at the luggage carousel area for retrieval by its owner, Customs agents shadow these marked boxes, including the owner.”
They want to make sure that the passenger is headed toward the Customs examiner and the marked luggage is not given to some “facilitator,” persons who carry temporary passes to enter the heavily guarded terminal, sometimes to simply welcome a relative or visitor, she said.
Examiners, now alerted by the chalked, glaring symbol “X,” subject the cargo to closer scrutiny.
“Many objects look innocuous enough, like the framed image of the Virgin Mary, or a piece of pillow carried by a passenger. The only way our agents could be certain about their contents is to call in the dogs of the drug agents,” Talusan said.
She added that some bonded warehouses within the Naia compound have their own x-rays, and there have been many successful interceptions there in the past. Once detected, the bonded warehouse management calls in the Customs examiners and drug-enforcement agents.
“The agents’ best assets are man’s best friend, the dog,” she said, noting that suspected contraband that are ingeniously concealed are subjected to inspection by especially trained dogs. The agents call them “drug sniffing K-9s.” This is how the heroin was found inside the lighter, she said.
Sparks fly
In an interview with the BusinessMirror, Talusan received 23 new recruits for the bureau. She briefed the newbies not to consider their job as the road to riches.
“There was a time in the recent past when Customs officials were immediately branded as thieves. Those days are gone. People now look at us with a measure of respect,” she said. “I have been in this job for 35 years without my name being linked to any corrupt dealings, and I hope that you, too, will last that long and make a good name for yourselves.”
Currently, the Customs bureau has a complement of about 5,000 men and women scattered across the country’s major seaports and airports like Laoag, Clark, Subic, Cebu, Davao, Zamboanga, Iloilo, Bohol and Laguindingan. There are about 15 active airports out of more than 80 aerodrome and airfields run by the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines.
The deputy commander of the Inter Agency Drug Interdiction Group (IADITG), Gerald Javier, said it was PDEA’s people who discovered the more than P6 billion worth of shabu inside a “lifter” at the Manila International Container Port recently. The agents became suspicious after seeing sparks flying at midnight. When they came to investigate, a welder was found trying to open the lifter with a blowtorch to retrieve the drugs.
Javier, who is now the task force head assigned at the Naia, said many of the drugs they were able to seize were sent via FedEx, an American multinational courier and delivery services that has a branch at the Naia. Other multinational delivery services there are DHL, UPS, LBC and PAL Cargo.
“These cargo forwarders have their own x-ray scanners because of the volume of cargo they handle,” he said, adding that his task force has a complement of 27 personnel. “The Task Force is a joint undertaking among the PDEA, NBI and airport police.”
He said the party drug ecstasy is usually sent via parcels from Bangkok and the x-ray was a big help in discovering them.
“President Rodrigo Duterte’s anti-illegal drug campaign has been successful because they were provided the means to detect drugs coming in from different countries,” he said.
Drugs in computer, art table
Last August, a package sent through the Cemec was found to have more than 14,000 tablets of ecstasy. The PDEA estimated the street value of the hot item was P25 million.
The tablets were concealed in the CPU of a desktop computer that arrived at the Cemec from France on August 4. Agents arrested the person who claimed the package, identified as Joan Loteia Reynoso. She denied owning the party drugs.
Javier said she reportedly carries a letter of authorization from consignee James Stanly, but the package was sent by a certain Roberto Stanly.
Their latest achievement, Javier said, was the interception of a parcel sent through FedEx, which was found to conceal some 800 grams of shabu. “At P6,800 per gram, that shabu is worth P5.4 million,” Javier said.
He said the cargo manifest declared the content of the parcel as “art table.”
“We opened the box and there was the new table. However, by lifting the table out of the box, it turns out that the shabu was expertly concealed inside the box,” Javier said.
The parcel arrived at the FedEx warehouse on September 21, consigned to a certain Joy Bido Mariel of Cavite. The sender is a certain Asuman Lopeta of 5EM Rue Industrielle Kinshasa, Republic of Congo.
Meanwhile, Talusan said the airport branch turned over to the PDEA some P37.3 million worth of illegal drugs it earlier impounded at the Naia. The agency’s haul consisted of 5,239 grams of shabu, camouflaged in a baby carrier. Others are inside a camera or inserted between the pages of business magazines. Some were found inside bar stools. The contraband were interdicted last May, June and July, respectively.
Aside from shabu, some 1,000 pieces of ecstasy were found concealed in wooden toys. The hot items were seized on July 20. Talusan traced their success to consistent “reforms and the five-point program by Commissioner Lapeña.”
Since Lapeña took over the helm at Customs, there has been a marked increase in the arrest of drug-related crimes, including the seizure of sizable volumes of shabu.
Lapeña, during a news conference at Talusan’s office recently, said shabu nowadays mostly come from the United States, while ecstasy tablets are from Germany.
The proper name of ecstasy is MDMA, meaning methylenedioxymethamphetamine. Like other amphetamines, it stimulates the central nervous system. It is also hallucinogenic.
“On taking MDMA, abusers may have a feeling of boundless energy and, thus, commonly take the drugs to help them to dance for lengthy periods,” the web site said.
“MDMA depletes the serotonin in the central nervous system, causing convulsions of muscles [usually muscles of the four limbs and the neck]. Therefore, all those ‘shaking and dancing’ are actually uncontrollable behavior of the abusers.”
The street names include ecstasy, E, XTC, Adam. MDMA is usually sold as round tablets of various colors (pink, white, green, etc.).
Lapeña said following the directive of the President, “the agency has been very proactive and relentless in its effort to combat the smuggling of illegal drugs.”
“The Bureau of Customs is very much on board in the country’s war against drugs and we will exert our efforts to continue protecting our nation and prevent the use of our ports in the smuggling of illegal drugs into the country,” Lapeña vowed.