Businessman Richard Tan a.k.a. Chen Ju Long stopped from leaving PHL
Bureau of Immigration (BI) personnel on Thursday stopped from leaving the country one of the personalities facing charges in court for the P6.4-billion shabu shipment that slipped past port inspections last May.
Businessman Chen Ju Long, alias Richard Tan or Richard Chen, was intercepted at 3 a.m. Thursday at the Clark International Airport where he was supposed to take a China Eastern Airlines flight bound for Shanghai.
“He was trying to board China Eastern Air flight # 5046 for Shanghai Pudong [International Airport]. His departure was deferred and advised to secure an allow departure order from the Department of Justice (DOJ),” Immigration spokesperson Antonette Mangrobang said in a text message.
Mangrobang said Chen left the airport after he was denied departure by the BI.
The businessman, who is on the BI’s lookout list, is the owner of Hongfei Logistics Inc., whose warehouse in Valenzuela City was found to have kept the 602.2 kilograms of shabu that were seized by the Bureau of Customs and National Bureau of Investigation operatives on May 26.
Chen and eight other individuals, including alleged customs fixer Mark Ruben Taguba II, Kenneth Dong, are now facing a drug importation case before the Valenzuela City Regional Trial Court over the shabu shipment after a three-person panel of prosecutors found probable cause against them.
"In finding probable cause against the above-named respondents for the importation of 602 kilograms of shabu, the panel determined that the combination of the individual participation of each of the respondents, either as shipper, consolidator, facilitator, broker, financier, consignee, or warehouse lessee—reveals a pattern of over acts indicative of conspiracy to import into the country the dangerous drugs," the DOJ said in a statement last week.
The panel recommended no bail for each of the accused.
The DOJ, meanwhile, is still hearing the smuggling raps filed by the BOC against nine people including Taguba, Dong, and Chen. — RSJ, GMA News