P1-M worth of shabu seized from dealer 'linked' to Dawlah Islamiya

COTABATO CITY — Policemen confiscated P1 million worth of shabu from a dealer who reportedly shared earnings to leaders of the Dawlah Islamiya, entrapped in Mulondo town in Lanao del Sur over the weekend.

In a report to the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region on Monday, Col. Robert Daculan, director of the Lanao del Sur Provincial Police Office, said that the suspect, whose name he withheld in meantime while efforts to locate his five accomplices in Mulondo are still underway, is now detained.

According to local officials and barangay leaders, the male Maranao suspect yielded peacefully when he was frisked and cuffed by anti-narcotics agents from different units of the Lanao del Sur PPO after selling to them 150 grams of shabu, costing P1 million, in an entrapment operation in Barangay Ilian, Mulondo.

The entrapment operation that led to his arrest was assisted by local officials and the office of Lanao del Sur Gov. Mamintal Adiong Jr., according to Brig. Gen. Prexy Tanggawohn, director of PRO-BAR.

Local executives on Monday urged police officials in the province to look into what is for them an imminent connection of the detained narcotics trafficker with the Dawlah Islamiya, which is fashioned from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.

The Dawlah Islamiya had claimed responsibility for the bombing last December of Catholics hearing mass inside a gymnasium in the campus of the Mindanao State University in Marawi City that left four worshipers dead and hurt more than 40 others, among them women and children.

The sources, among them a preacher who studied Islamic theology at the Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt, said that besides collecting shares from earnings of large-scale shabu dealers in Lanao del Sur, Dawlah Islamiya leaders also provide them sanctuary in exchange for money if they are subjected to manhunt by law-enforcement agencies.

“This suspect who was arrested in Barangay Ilian is related to leaders of the Dawlah Islamiya according to our constituents,” a member of the Sangguniang Bayan in one of the 39 towns in Lanao del Sur, said.