Agents seize P1.3-M worth of shabu in Cotabato City operation

COTABATO CITY — Agents of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency seized P1.3 million worth of shabu from a dealer operating in three cities and two provinces who fell in an entrapment operation in Cotabato City on Wednesday.

The 26-year-old Najer Cosain Arumpac, now in the custody of the PDEA-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, is known to local executives as an itinerant large-scale shabu dealer who has networks in Marawi City, in Iligan City, in the provinces of Lanao del Sur and Maguindanao del Norte and in at least nine of the 37 barangays in Cotabato.

Gil Cesario Castro, director of PDEA-BARMM, told reporters on Thursday that Arumpac was immediately arrested and detained after selling 200 grams of shabu, costing P1.3 million, to their non-uniformed agents in a tradeoff in Barangay Poblacion 5 here.

Castro said the entrapment operation that resulted in the arrest of Arumpac and confiscation from him of P1.3 million worth of shabu was assisted by units of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region under Brig Gen. Prexy Tanggawohn.

Members of the Lanao del Sur Provincial Peace and Order Council, led by Gov. Mamintal Adiong Jr., and local executives in Maguindanao del Norte helped them plot the sting that led to the arrest of Arumpac, according to Castro.