Drug den shut down, 5 arrested in PDEA raids

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — Agents of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency-12 padlocked a drug den and arrested five shabu traffickers in separate operations in two days.

The first of the two PDEA-12 operations, carried out on Thursday, February 6, resulted in the arrest of three men, who fell in an entrapment operation right in the premises of their drug den in a residential area in Polomolok, South Cotabato.

The regional director of PDEA-12, Benjamin Recites III, told reporters on Saturday, February 8, that the three suspects were immediately detained after selling to their agents P68,000 worth of shabu.

They yielded peacefully when they sensed that they had sold shabu to PDEA-12 agents and operatives of different police units under Brig. Gen. Arnold Ardiente of the Police Regional Office-12 (PRO-12) during a tradeoff on Thursday night in Polomolok.

PDEA-12 agents and policemen from PRO-12 units arrested a couple on Friday morning, February 7, after they found P460,000 worth of shabu in their house in President Quirino, Sultan Kudarat.

PDEA-12 agents and anti-narcotics operatives from the President Quirino Municipal Police Station and the Sultan Kudarat Provincial Police Office subjected the house of the suspects to an extensive search based on reports by neighbors about their peddling of shabu in the municipality.

Recites said all five suspects arrested in their separate operations last Thursday and, subsequently, on Friday, are to be prosecuted for violation of the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002.