P1.6M worth shabu seized in Marawi, South Cotabato police operations

COTABATO CITY — Policemen seized P1.6 million worth of shabu from four dealers busted in entrapment operations in Marawi City in the Bangsamoro region and in Polomolok, South Cotabato in Region 12 on Tuesday, November 5.

The first to fall in the separate anti-narcotics stings were Jamel Mama Hadji Omar and Fahad Datu Muto, arrested by plainclothes policemen after selling to them P340,000 worth of shabu in a tradeoff in Barangay Moriatao Luksadato in Marawi City, the capital of Lanao del Sur.

Brig. Gen. Romeo Macapaz, director of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, told reporters on Thursday that the office of Lanao del Sur Gov. Mamintal Adiong Jr. and barangay officials in Marawi City supported the operation that led to the arrest of Omar and Muto.

Macapaz said Omar and Muto are now locked in a detention facility of the Marawi City Police Office.

The police director of Region 12, Brig. Gen. James Gulmatico, announced on Thursday that combined personnel of the Polomolok Municipal Police Station and the South Cotabato Provincial Police Office had confiscated P1.3 million worth of shabu from two peddlers entrapped in Barangay Poblacion in Polomolok. 

The suspects, whom officials of the Polomolok police force identified only as Ronald and Marko, while efforts to locate their accomplices in the municipality are still underway, yielded peacefully when they sensed that they had sold P1.3 million worth of shabu to members of different units of the Region 12 police disguised as drug dependents in an entrapment operation in Barangay Poblacion in the municipality.

Gulmatico said they have charged the duo for their violation of the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002.