9 jailed, 2 drug dens closed in PDEA Mindanao operations

COTABATO CITY — Agents of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency arrested nine individuals, long under surveillance for shabu trafficking, and shut down two drug dens in separate operations in two Mindanao cities within 24 hours.

The first to fall in the twin anti-narcotics operations were three suspected shabu peddlers operating a clandestine drug den in Lamitan City, Basilan.

The three male suspects were arrested after selling P40,800 worth of shabu to agents of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency–Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (PDEA-BARMM) and plainclothes policemen during a buy-bust operation on Tuesday, April 8. The transaction took place within the premises of their drug den in Barangay Matibay.

Gil Cesario Castro, director of PDEA-BARMM, told reporters on Thursday, April 10, that the operation that led to the arrest of the three suspects, now locked in a police detention facility, was laid with the help of the local government unit of Lamitan City and members of its multi-sector City Peace and Order Council led by Mayor Rhoderick Furigay.

Combined PDEA agents in Region 12 and police operatives nabbed a female drug den owner and her five accomplices in a sting in Barangay Lanao in Kidapawan City on Wednesday, April 9.

The six suspects yielded peacefully when they sensed that they had sold P42,000 worth of shabu to PDEA-12 agents and policemen whom they thought had come to their drug den for a pot session.

Benjamin Recites III, director of PDEA-12, on Thursday said that the group busted in the entrapment operation in Barangay Lanao is led by a 27-year-old woman, whose drug den is now guarded by volunteer community watchmen.

All six of them are now detained, according to Recites.