5 women busted in Cotabato City operation

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — Agents of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency seized P680,000 worth of shabu from five Maguindanaon women entrapped in Barangay Bagua 3 in Cotabato City on Friday, September 27.

Gil Cesario Castro, director of PDEA-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, confirmed to reporters on Saturday that the five suspects, Salama Dimalen, Jasmin Dimalen, Mali Ukas, Iran Ukas and Baican Omar are now locked in their detention facility, to be prosecuted for violation of the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs of 2002.

All five of them were immediately detained after turning over P680,000 worth of shabu to PDEA-BARMM agents and policemen in a tradeoff on Friday along Mabini Street in Barangay Bagua 3, a residential area in Cotabato City, carried out with the help of Brig. Gen. Prexy Tanggawohn, director of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region.

The five women were long subjects of joint surveillance by PDEA-BARMM and intelligence agents from units under PRO-BAR for their large-scale peddling of shabu in interior barangays in Cotabato City and in nearby towns in Maguindanao del Norte.

Castro said the PDEA-BARMM is grateful to tipsters, among them relatives of the suspects, who provided them information about their illegal activities, enabling the agency to plot the entrapment operation that resulted in their arrest.