3 drug den operators busted in PDEA-BARMM operation

COTABATO CITY — Anti-narcotics agents seized from three drug den operators, reportedly linked to a local terror group, P102,000 worth of shabu in an entrapment operation in Barangay Poblacion 2 in Cotabato City on Monday, October 7.

Relatives of the now detained Abdul Eman Kusin, 39, Norman Pendular, 20 years old and the 23-year-old Richard Hilaga Batuga, among them residents of a nearby town in Maguindanao del Norte who requested anonymity, told reporters that all three of them had peddled shabu discreetly in far-flung areas where there is presence of the now moribund Dawlah Islamiya.

The allies Dawlah Islamiya and the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters, tagged in deadly bombings in Central Mindanao in recent years, are led by violent religious extremists involved in trafficking of shabu and propagation of marijuana.

Gil Cesario Castro, director of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, on Tuesday said that their agents immediately arrested Kusin, Pendular and Batuga after selling to them P102,000 worth of shabu in a tradeoff on Monday along Doña Pilar Street in Barangay Poblacion 2, Cotabato City.

Castro said the entrapment operation that led to their arrest and confiscation of shabu was carried out with the help of different units under Brig. Gen. Prexy Tanggawohn, director of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region.