P20.4-M worth shabu confiscated in Sulu PDEA operation

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — Combined agents of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency and policemen seized P20.4 million worth of shabu from two peddlers entrapped in Barangay Tulay in Jolo, Sulu at about dusk Friday, November 22.

Gil Cesario Castro, director of the PDEA-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, told reporters on Saturday, November 23, that the now detained Sali Salim Tating and Sherwin Hapasain Talib are to be prosecuted for violation of the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002.

PDEA-BARMM agents and policemen from units in Sulu of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region immediately arrested Tating and Talib after selling to them three kilos of shabu, costing P20.4 million, in a tradeoff in Barangay Tulay in Jolo, which was laid with the help of Sulu Gov. Hadji Abdusakur Tan Sr. and the director of PRO-BAR, Brig. Gen. Romeo Juan Macapaz.

Castro said the duo voluntarily turned themselves in when they sensed that they had sold their illegal merchandise to law-enforcement agents.

Castro said the operation that resulted in the arrest of Tating and Talib were premised on reports by confidential informants, among them their relatives, about their large-scale peddling of shabu in Sulu province.