Cops seize P2.7-M worth shabu in Maguindanao Norte buy-bust

COTABATO CITY — Policemen confiscated P2.7 million worth of shabu from a peddler entrapped in Barangay Limbo in Sultan Kudarat, Maguindanao del Norte with the help of local officials and Islamic preachers on Monday.

Brig. Gen. Prexy Tanggawohn, director of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, told reporters on Tuesday that the suspect, Jobert Balleque Paches, voluntarily turned himself in when he found out that he sold 400 grams of shabu to policemen led by Lt. Col. Esmael Madin, chief of the Sultan Kudarat Municipal Police Station, in a clandestine tradeoff in Barangay Limbo.

Madin, in a report to Tanggawohn and the Maguindanao del Norte Provincial Police Office, said that the sting that resulted in the confiscation of P2.7 million worth of shabu from Paches was supported by barangay officials and Muslim religious leaders aware of his peddling of shabu in Sultan Kudarat and nearby barangays in Cotabato City.

Aside from shabu, Madin said they also seized the white minivan of Paches, bearing license plates MAT 9729, now parked in the premises of their station in the town proper of Sultan Kudarat.