Cops nab Iloilo City ‘shabu queen’

ILOILO CITY – Police officers posing as college students arrested last Friday night a drug pusher known as the “Shabu Queen of Iloilo.”

The entrapment operation that led to the arrest of Maria Victoria Lopez-Arroyo is part of the intensified campaign against drug traffickers of Western Visayas police regional director, Chief Supt. Isagani Cuevas.

Operatives from the Philippine Drug Enforcement and the Regional Special Operations Group recovered two plastic bags containing methamphetamine hydrochloride or shabu weighing one gram, from Arroyo during the entrapment operation at around 6:30 p.m. inside a billiard hall near her house at Zamora Extension, a few blocks away from the Police Regional Office 6 at Camp Martin Delgado.

Police also took into custody Arroyo’s husband, Graciano, for obstruction of justice after he tried to prevent policemen from arresting his wife.

Arroyo’s drug courier, known only as Faith, was able to escape the police dragnet.

Arroyo is now detained at the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology facility at the Iloilo City Police Office.

The PDEA will file criminal charges for violation of Republic Act 9165 against her on Monday.  – Ronilo Pamonag