BY DOMINIQUE GABRIEL G. BAÑAGA
Two separate drug operations in Negros Occidental led to the confiscation of suspected shabu worth millions.
Past midnight yesterday, authorities seized suspected shabu weighing about six kilograms in Barangay Palampas, San Carlos City, Negros Occidental.
Police said the suspected drugs contained in six tape-sealed plastic pouches were worth about P72 million.
The Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA), on the other hand, said the recovered drugs were worth P40.8 million.
Joint elements of PDEA Regions 6 and 7, San Carlos City police station, and Philippine Army’s 12th and 79th Infantry Battalions staged the sting operation around 12:30 a.m. on Wednesday.
The targets of the operation – couple Armando and Josephine Paraquelles and a man only identified as “Putot” – were able to evade arrest.
They ran to a sugarcane plantation upon sensing they were transacting with an undercover officer, police said.
Police were still hunting the suspects as of press time.
The confiscation is so far the biggest in Negros Occidental this year.
San Carlos City police head Superintendent D’Artagnan Katalbas Jr. said the packaging of the suspected drugs indicates that they were transported to the city through sea.
Meanwhile, suspected shabu worth an estimated P1.4 million was confiscated from two men in a drug buy-bust operation in Bacolod City.
The men were identified as the 21-year-old Faisalin Ibra and 42-year-old Norhan Caunda – both residents of Marawi City, Lanao del Sur.
Ibra and Caunda, who are residing at the Islamic Center along Lopez Jaena Street in Bacolod, had been under surveillance for weeks before their arrest on Tuesday afternoon.
Officers from the Police Station 2 recovered five sachets of suspected shabu from them.
The police also impounded a Hyundai sedan from the suspects.
In an interview, Ibra and Caunda admitted that they were selling drugs.
The two were currently detained in the lockup facility of Police Station 2 and facing charges for violation of Republic Act 9165, or the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002./DGB, WDJ
