6 busted in Maguindanao del Norte anti-narcotics operation

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — A police team clamped down six men after confiscating from them P231,996 worth of shabu while gathered in their clandestine drug den in Barangay Limbo in Sultan Kudarat, Maguindanao del Norte on Tuesday night, May 27.

The suspects, Jomar Salik Cabatuan, Ebrahim Sanduyogan, Yahiya Ortega Baraguir, Montasir Salilama Cana, Sahid Dra Pananggulon and Randolph Raboy Abis, are now locked in the detention facility of the Sultan Kudarat Municipal Police Station, to be prosecuted for violation of the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002.

Brig. Gen. Romeo Juan Macapaz, director of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, told reporters on Wednesday that the group, led by Cabatuan, were arrested in an entrapment operation in the premises of his house in Barangay Limbo where they sell shabu and hold pot sessions together.

Cabatuan and his five companions were immediately arrested by a police team, led by Sultan Kudarat’s municipal police chief, Lt. Col Esmael Madin, after one of them traded P1,632.00 worth of shabu to his non-uniformed subordinates disguised as drug dependents.

Madin and his team had also seized, in a subsequent search, P230,996.00 more worth from Cabatuan, according to Macapaz.

Madin and Macapaz had separately said that the entrapment operation that resulted in the arrest of the six suspects was premised on reports by vigilant residents in Barangay Ladia about their shabu peddling activities.