6 arrested, drug den shut in PDEA Mindanao operations

COTABATO CITY — Anti-narcotics agents seized P432,600 worth of crystal meth (shabu) and arrested four drug den operators and two others, including an alleged member of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), in separate operations in Central Mindanao on Wednesday.

The first to fall in the two entrapment operations were four men facilitating pot sessions in their hideout in Malagapas in Barangay Rosary Heights 10, Cotabato City.

This was planned with the help of Mayor Bruce C. Matabalao and his constituent-community leaders in the area and officials of the Police Regional Drug Enforcement Unit-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region.

Benjamin C. Recites III, director of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region Muslim Mindanao (PDEA-BARMM), told reporters on Thursday that the four suspects were immediately frisked and cuffed by their agents after they sold 22 grams of shabu, costing P149,000, during a trade-off in the premises of their drug den in Malagapas.

Mr. Matabalao told reporters on Thursday that his office is ready to help the PDEA-BARMM build airtight criminal cases against the four suspects, now locked in the agency’s detention facility at the PC Hill area in Cotabato City.

The drug den of the four shabu dealers now in PDEA-BARMM’s custody is being guarded by volunteer community watchmen and barangay officials.

Agents of PDEA-12 have also arrested two male shabu traffickers in an entrapment operation on Wednesday in Barangay Sampao in Isulan, the capital town of Sultan Kudarat.

Charlene R. Magdurulang, director of PDEA-12, said one of the two peddlers their agents have entrapped near a public cemetery in Purok Adarna in Barangay Sampao has an MILF identification card bearing his name.

The duo was arrested by nonuniformed PDEA-12 agents after procuring from them P238,000 worth of shabu, weighing 35 grams, at one spot in Purok Adarna in Barangay Sampao in an operation supported by policemen from units of the Police Regional Office-12, under Brig. Gen. Arnold P. Ardiente.

PDEA-12 agents said local executives in Isulan and the mayor of Shariff Aguak, Datu Akmad B. Ampatuan, were partly instrumental in the entrapment operation. — John Felix M. Unson