Cops seize more equipment in foiled attempt to set up shabu lab in remote Occidental Mindoro island
Government anti-narcotics agents seized equipment and other materials allegedly for a planned illegal drugs laboratory following another raid that resulted this time to the arrest of two people in Looc, Occidental Mindoro.
But Gen. Jose Melencio C. Nartatez, Jr. wants to dig deeper into the case since the two arrested suspects, one of them is a senior citizen, appeared to have been acted as mere caretaker of the equipment seized in Barangay Bulacan in Looc.
“I commend our personnel for a job well done in locating this area despite being on a remote island. This is clear proof of good intelligence-gathering and a conduct of strategic operation,” said Nartatez.
“But the operation will not end in the dismantling of this illegal drugs laboratory. We have to identify those people behind this and determine if there are other similar facilities in any part of the country,” he added.
Looc is part of the Lubang Island group located off the northwestern coast of Occidental Mindoro. Several villages in the area are accessible only by boat and have limited communication infrastructure, making intelligence operations more difficult.
On May 26, agents of the PNP Drug Enforcement Group raided a suspected illegal drugs laboratory and seized several equipment.
Police got another infornation of the location of more equipment and conducted a follow-up operation on Friday, May 29, based on the search warrant issued by Judge Ulyssess D. Delgado, presiding judge of the Regional Trial Court Branch 44, Fourth Judicial Region, Mamburao, Occidental Mindoro.
Nartatez said investigators are now talking with the two arrested persons to get more details as to how the equipment and materials ended up in their property.
He said police units are now conducting inventory of all the confiscated items from the suspected clandestine illegal drug laboratory.