Authorities seized more than P455 million worth of shabu during a raid in an apartment Saturday morning in Las Piñas City.
Las Piñas City police commander Col. Segundo Lagundi Jr. said Melanie Salem, who is renting Unit-A Lot 27 Blk 5 along F. Manalo Street, Golden Acres Subdivision in Barangay Talon 5 where the illegal drugs were found, is now in police custody.
He said a composite team from the Philippine National Police Drug Enforcement Group, Southern Police District and the local police raided the apartment around 5:15 a.m. and found 67 kilograms of shabu placed in tea bags.
Lt. Gen. Camilo Cascolan, PNP deputy chief for operations, led the raiding team.
“The team acted on a tip by Maria Clavo, owner of the apartment, that her tenant allegedly brought the prohibited substance into the apartment,” said Lagundi.
The drugs were turned over to Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency for proper disposition.
Police said Salem is the alleged live-in partner of Joel Bustamante, one of the suspects arrested in a buy-bust operation last Wednesday at a parking lot along C-5 Extension in Barangay Manuyo, also in Las Piñas City.
Bustamante and his brother Merwin, both residents of Tenejeros, Malabon City, were alleged couriers of Liu Chao who was apprehended in possession of P2.5 billion worth of illegal drugs in Makati City.
Police said 17 kilos of shabu worth P116 million were also seized from the Bustamantes when they were arrested.
Officials of PDEA, the lead government agency going after drug traffickers, said the country’s drug problem can now be classified as national security threat.
No less than President Rodrigo Duterte had revealed that 40 percent of barangay officials are linked to illegal drugs.