P6.8-M worth shabu seized in Maguindanao police operation

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — Non-uniformed policemen seized P6.8 million worth of shabu from three traffickers who fell in an entrapment operation in Barangay Awang in Datu Odin Sinsuat, Maguindanao del Norte on Friday, September 6.

Brig. Gen. Prexy Tanggawohn, director of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, told reporters on Saturday that they are now in custody of the suspects, Saddam Mantil, Sumugat Usop and Esrael Undong, to be prosecuted for violation of the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002.

They were arrested after selling a kilo of shabu, costing P6.8 million, to plainclothes policemen in a tradeoff along a highway in Barangay Awang in Datu Odin Sinsuat.

Tanggawohn said the sting that resulted in the arrest and confiscation from Mantil, Sumugat and Usop of a kilo of shabu was first laid in one of the barangays in Sultan Kudarat by its municipal police chief, Lt. Col. Esmael Madin, and his subordinates.

“The suspects bargained that the sale of their prohibited merchandise be done in Barangay Awang in Datu Odin Sinsuat instead. There was a change in the venue of the transaction," Tanggawohn said.

Tanggawohn said Madin,  the chief of the Datu Odin Sinsuat Municipal Police Station, Lt. Col. Samuel Roy Subsuban, and barangay officials cooperated in the entrapment operation in Awang that resulted in the arrest of the three suspects, now detained.

Policemen led by Madin and Subsuban had also confiscated the grey Ford Ranger pick-up truck of the three suspects that they used in transporting shabu to contacts in different barangays in Cotabato City and in the adjoining Maguindanao del Norte and Maguindanao del Sur provinces.