AGENTS of the Bureau of Immigration arrested 154 Chinese nationals for possible violation of immigration laws and alleged involvement in illegal online gambling in Pampanga.
Immigration Commissioner Jaime Morente said the foreigners were apprehended during a raid of the suspects’ rented unit at the 2nd and 3rd floors of the Dong Gwang annex bldg. in Clark Field, Angeles City.
Members of the BI Intelligence Division and Angeles City Police Office, led by Sr. Supt Sidney Villaflor, conducted the raid.
The arresting agents were armed with a mission order from the BI chief after the aliens’ presence in the building was confirmed as a result of intensive surveillance for several weeks.
“The sustained effort to weed out illegal aliens and undocumented foreign nationals continues to gain ground with the help of our partners in law enforcement and the community,” Morente said.
The arrested Chinese nationals will undergo summary deportation proceedings for violating the conditions of their stay in the Philippines and for engaging in activities inimical to the public interest.
BI spokesperson Antonette Mangrobang explained that the mission order directed the Intelligence Division to conduct operations and verify status of subjects.
The Chinese nationals are confined in an Immigration facility in Clark.
The arrest of the 154 Chinese nationals happened only three days after the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency arrested seven other Chinese citizens during a raid on a clandestine methamphetamine laboratory inside a pig farm in Magalang, Pampanga.
Wilkins Villanueva, head of the PDEA in Central Luzon, said the laboratory was built underground inside a pig farm, called the Jay Wong Hog Farm, which is near the Regional Training Center of the Philippine National Police and the Central Luzon Drug Rehabilitation Center.
“The shabu lab is a research and development laboratory of an international drug syndicate,” Villanueva said, adding that the laboratory had been operating for more than a decade.
“The seizure and arrests proved that our law enforcement agencies are working as one and that cooperation and the sharing of information are most effective in combating the illegal drugs trade,” said Senior Supt. Graciano Mijares.
A source in Camp Crame said Police Chief Ronald dela Rosa was appalled by the discovery of the shabu laboratory. He asked the police to look into the possible connivance of rogue policemen and government officials in the shabu lab operation.