Four Taiwanese businessmen will have to stay in the country longer in the most unexpected place — jail after the Court of Appeals (CA) affirmed the life imprisonment handed down by a Quezon City court for selling 500 grams of shabu worth P400,000 to undercover cops in 2003.

Aside from the prison term, accused- appellants Dy Chin Hu, Dexter Tan, Yu Go Bun and Choi Wen Nen were ordered to each pay a fine of P500,000 for violating provisions of the Comprehensive Drugs Act of 2002.

The aliens were arrested in the parking lot of a Quezon City mall after selling the regulated drug during a buy-bust operation in February 2003 that confirmed the information volunteered by an informant that a big-time Taiwanese syndicate was openly selling shabu in the Binondo area.

In a bid to escape prosecution, the foreigners alleged that they were kidnapped by the lawmen who demanded P1.5 million for their release and then filed drug charges against them to cover-up the offense.

The trial court had earlier rejected the “hulidap” theory of the accused for being “inconceivable.”

“The only element necessary to consummate the crime is proof that the illicit transaction took place and the presentation of the drug as evidence in court,” the court added.

In a decision written by Associate Justice Celia C. Librea-Leagogo, the CA’s Tenth Division said “if the police officers indeed tried to extort money from them (appellants), they could have filed the proper charges against the erring police officers. The fact that no administrative or criminal charges were filed by appellants against the police officers involved lends cogency to the conclusion that the alleged “huli-dap” was merely concocted by the appellants as a defense ploy.”