P6.8-M worth shabu seized in PDEA Lanao del Sur operation

COTABATO CITY — Anti-narcotics agents confiscated P6.8 million worth of shabu from two dealers entrapped in Barangay Saduc in Marawi City with the help of local executives over the weekend.

Gil Cesario Castro, director of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, told reporters on Monday that they will prosecute the duo, Abdul Diongaan, 47, and the 49-year-old Panarigan Radia, for violation of the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002.

Castro said Diongaan and Radia fell in a PDEA-BARMM sting laid with the help of local executives, among them Lanao del Sur Gov. Mamintal Adiong Jr., and Brig. Gen. Prexy Tanggawohn, who is director of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region.

In separate reports released on Monday morning, PDEA-BARMM’s provincial office in Lanao del Sur and the Marawi City Police Office stated that Diongaan and Radia did not resist when they were frisked and cuffed by non-uniformed anti-narcotics agents to whom they sold a kilo of shabu, costing P6.8 million, in a tradeoff in a secluded area in Barangay Saduc.

Barangay Saduc is a residential area in Marawi City, the capital of Lanao del Sur, one of the six provinces in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.

The PDEA-BARMM and units of PRO-BAR had seized some P50 million worth of shabu in separate operations in Lanao del Sur, covering 39 towns and more than 90 barangays in Marawi City, in the past 15 months.

PDEA-BARMM agents confiscated P34 million worth of shabu from a dealer, Zacaria Nandang, during an entrapment operation on April 8 in Barangay Matalin in Malabang town in the second district of Lanao del Sur.

Nandang, now detained, is awaiting prosecution for the possession of P34 million worth of shabu.