COTABATO CITY, Philippines — Anti-narcotics agents seized 67 kilos of shabu, costing P455 million, from four traffickers entrapped in Barangay Mercedes in Zamboanga City on Wednesday afternoon, November 11.
Local executives confirmed to reporters on Thursday that all four suspects, Sabirin Kirah Alisan, Jul-Asbi Nassal Asakil, Abu-darda Marajukun Abdulhaih and their female accomplice, Shermahal Abdul Halisan, are now in the custody of the Philippine Drug Enforcement 9, awaiting prosecution in court.
Officials of intelligence units under the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region and the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, covering Central Mindanao, separately told reporters on Thursday that the suspects, entrapped in their hideout along Arcillas Street in Barangay Mercedes in Zamboanga City, are linked to a few remnants of at least two now inactive drug trafficking groups in Central Mindanao.
The entrapment operation that resulted in their arrest and the confiscation from them of 67 kilos of shabu, worth P455 million, was reportedly laid with the help of the office of Zamboanga City Mayor Khymer Olaso and officials of the Police Regional Office 9, premised on tips by confidential informants about their stockpiling of shabu in their hideout along Arcillas Street in Barangay Mercedes.
Army and police officials based in Central Mindanao had separately confirmed to reporters that 13 accomplices of the four suspects in the provinces of Maguindanao del Sur, Maguindanao del Norte and in Lanao del Sur were entrapped in separate operations by the PDEA-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao and policemen from different units of PRO-BAR since January this year.
Local executives had told reporters that Alisan, Asakil, Abdulhaih and Halisan were immediately detained by combined agents from PDEA 9, from Cebu and the National Capital Region and policemen from different PRO 9 units after selling to them shabu right in their lair in Barangay Mercedes, their transhipment point for their illegal merchandise.
PDEA agents and police operatives immediately subjected their hideout to an extensive search and found in its rooms P455 million worth of shabu, supposedly earmarked for distribution by their accomplices in Zamboanga City and in the provinces in the Zamboanga Peninsula and in BARMM.
Bryan Babang, director of PDEA 9, said the four now-detained suspects shall be prosecuted for violation of the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002 using the shabu seized from them as evidence.