Gunrunning syndicate busted in NE

CABANATUAN CITY — A gunrunning syndicate tagged as the main supplier of firearms to car thieves, holdup men and other lawless elements in Nueva Ecija, was busted after a month-long surveillance with the arrest of its suspected leader and two cohorts last Sunday.

Superintendent Ferdinand Vero, chief of the provincial Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG), said alleged gang leader Reynaldo Sales, 28; and henchmen Conrado Delfin, 29, and Roman Sales, 36, were arrested during a buy-bust in Aliaga town.

Sales yielded a homemade 9-mm. pistol with magazine, and Delfin a homemade caliber .45 pistol with magazine during the operation led by Senior Inspector Wildreo Alfonso, CIDG deputy provincial chief, and Inspector Ernesto de los Santos, Aliaga police chief, in Roman’s house in Barangay Macabubod.

A fourth gang member, a certain Jerry, eluded arrest and is now being hunted down, along with three other cohorts.

Vero said it was Jerry who received the money from a policeman poseur-buyer and brought the latter to Roman’s house where the illegal guns were being manufactured.

According to Vero, the "Sales gang" was one of two big-time gunrunning syndicates operating in Nueva Ecija. The other group, which existed for 10 years, was busted last year.

Vero said Sales’ group had operated in the past three years, selling high-powered firearms such as caliber .22 Magnum revolvers to lawless elements.

He said car thieves and robbers earlier arrested by his men pointed to Sales’ group as the source of their firearms.