Cops arrest shabu dealer in Kidapawan City operation

COTABATO CITY— Policemen seized P268,600 worth of shabu from a dealer caught in an entrapment operation in Barangay Magsaysay, Kidapawan City, before dawn on Saturday, July 26.

The 41-year-old suspect, Bryan Paches Lahaylahay, who reportedly peddled shabu near school campuses, fell in a sting laid with the help of local executives and members of the Kidapawan City Peace and Order Council, led by Mayor Jose Paolo Evangelista.

Brig. Gen. Arnold Ardiente, director of the Police Regional Office-12, told reporters on Monday, July 28, that Lahaylahay was immediately arrested by plainclothes operatives of PRO-12, the Regional Police Drug Enforcement Unit-12 and combined personnel of the Kidapawan City Police Office and the Cotabato Provincial Police Office after selling to them 39.5 grams of shabu, costing P268,600, during an entrapment operation in Purok 2 in Barangay Magsaysay.

Ardiente said Lahaylahay is now detained, awaiting prosecution for violation of the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002.

Ardiente said he and his subordinate officers involved in the operation are thankful to Kidapawan City officials for reporting Lahaylahay’s drug trafficking activities, which enabled them to carry out the entrapment operation that led to his arrest.

Besides shabu, the police team that apprehended Lahaylahay also seized his black Kymco motorcycle, which he used to distribute illegal drugs to contacts in Kidapawan City, the capital of Cotabato province in Region 12.