(CNN Philippines) — Maria Cristina Sergio admitted to the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) that she had links with an international drug syndicate and that she participated in the operations by recruiting individuals to serve as unwitting drug mules.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) bared this in an 18-page resolution issued on Thursday (May 7), copies of which were given to media.
The resolution detailed the statement of Sergio that the drug syndicate she was connected with operated within and outside the Philippines, as she had co-conspirators in Manila, Hong Kong, and Malaysia.
She identified her cohorts in Manila as a certain Trina Quinones, a live-in partner of a certain African-American national named Ivan Jairus.
Sergio also confirmed that a Nigerian national named “Iky” or “Ike” was the person who gave Mary Jane Veloso the luggage containing illegal drugs.
Veloso was caught in Indonesia in 2010 with 2.6 kilos of heroin hidden in a bag she said was given to her by Sergio. An Indonesia court convicted her for attempting to smuggle heroin in and sentenced to die by firing squad.
The sentence would have been carried out on April 29, but Indonesian President Joko Widodo gave her a last-minute stay of execution, partly because Sergio had turned herself in a day before the execution.
That gave the Philippine government something concrete on which to base its argument that Veloso was a victim of human trafficking, with Sergio as one of the suspects behind the illegal operations.
In the investigation that followed, the NBI also learned that both Sergio — alias Mary Christine Gulles Pasadilla — and Lacanilao started working as drug mules in 2010 for a West African Drug Syndicate cell based in Malaysia, headed by a Nigerian national named Samuel Ezekalu, a.k.a. Sam.
The NBI also learned that both respondents participated in the growing drug trade by recruiting willing or unwilling participants in the illegal activity.
On the recommendation of the Department of Justice, the illegal recruitment case against the couple will be filed on Friday (May 8) with no bail recommended.
