By: April Therese Tan
In a joint controlled delivery operation, the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency-7 in coordination with Bureau of Customs of Ninoy Aquino International Airport and Cebu, Customs Intelligence and Investigation Service (CIIS), and Enforcement and Security Service (ESS), nabbed last Monday in Cebu City the claimant of the package containing ecstasy tablets worth over P5 Million.
The package, declared to contain women’s clothing, was imported from Netherlands through the Port of NAIA and consigned to a resident of Barangay Pasil, Cebu City.
Through the vigilance and intensified profiling of the Port of NAIA frontliners, the package was discovered to contain illegal drugs.
PDEA-7 and BOC-Cebu immediately coordinated for the conduct of controlled delivery operation and arrest of the claimant.
According to BOC-Port of Cebu in their Facebook post, tje claimant, who was identified as Lunel Garcia Paden, 30 years old, called the Philippine Postal Cebu Central Office in the morning of July 18 to request a door-to-door delivery of the package.
Upon receipt, PDEA agents together with CIIS and ESS officers of the Port of Cebu arrested the claimant and confiscated the package.
The joint operation yielded 2,984 pieces of colored ecstasy tablets, it added.
The confiscated drugs and other non-drug items are now in custody of the PDEA-7 for case build up and prosecution against Paden for violation of Republic Act No. 9165 or the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002 in relation to the Customs Modernization and Tariff Act.