SEIZED. The illegal drugs, marked money, and shabu paraphernalia seized from two big-time drug peddlers in Cotabato City on Tuesday (Aug. 20, 2024). A kilo of suspected “shabu” with a street value of PHP6.8 million were found in the possession of the suspects, police said. (Photo courtesy of PDEA-BARMM)
COTABATO CITY – Anti-narcotics agents arrested two men allegedly engaged in the illegal drug trade and seized from them PHP6.8 million worth of “shabu” during a drug sting operation along a commercial district here Tuesday afternoon.
In a statement Wednesday, Director Gil Cesario Castro of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (PDEA-BARMM) identified the suspects only as “Esmael,” 43, and “Dali,” 49, both of Sultan Kudarat town in Maguindanao del Norte.
“They were arrested during the hand-off of the illegal stuff at 3 p.m.,” he said of the PDEA-led operation joined by the city police and City Public Safety Office along Governor Gutierrez Avenue.
Castro said the suspects yielded a kilo of shabu, two mobile phones, and other pieces of evidence.
Also on Tuesday, police arrested four drug personalities caught in the act of sniffing prohibited substances in a suspected drug den in Barangay Poblacion Mother at about 1 p.m.
Major John Vincent Bravo, city police station 1 chief, said one of the four suspects admitted using illegal drugs, while the other three, including two girls, claimed they were unaware of the situation as they were just passersby heading to the city market. (PNA)
