30 marijuana bricks seized in Baguio

BAGUIO CITY — Thirty bricks of dried compacted marijuana leaves amounting to more than half a million pesos were seized by authorities from three drug traffickers in Barangay Pinsao here over the weekend.

Weighing a total of 30 kilos, the marijuana bricks, reportedly produced from Bakun town in Benguet, were seized by agents of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) here from Denson Bagnisen, 18, of Barangay Bayugan in La Trinidad; a 17-year old youth from Tinglayan town, Kalinga province; and Artemio Sagayo, 43, also a resident of La Trinidad.

Superintendent Danilo Flordeliza, chief of the anti-narcotics operatives here, narrated that an operative posed as a buyer and snared the 17-year-old who offered to sell a bar of marijuana resin.

During interrogation, the PDEA operatives learned that a big haul of marijuana bricks were already transported from Bakun town to Baguio City. Thus, another buy-bust operation was launched to seize the illegal contraband.

Bagnisen and Sagayo were then caught in the act of delivering the marijuana bricks to agents posing as buyers, Flordeliza said.

The bricks were valued by the Dangerous Drugs Board at P500,000.

The three drug traffickers were brought to the city from Bakun on board buses plying the Bakun-Baguio route.

The 100-gram marijuana resin, authorities claim, was produced in remote Botbot, in Tinglayan town, in Kalinga province. It was estimated to be worth P27,000.

Authorities peg the market value of marijuana bricks during this time to reach P20,000.00 each.