Passi City’s top drug pusher nabbed in P360K buy-bust

ILOILO CITY, Philippines — The number one illegal drugs pushing suspect in Passi City and his alleged runner were arrested in a buy-bust operation at their house at Barangay Poblacion Ilaya in that city late Monday afternoon.

The arrested suspects were identified as Edgar Panes, 49, who the police tagged as Passi’s topmost drug pusher, and John Eric Milla, 44, who was not in the police watchlist but was allegedly caught selling shabu to the police poseur buyer.

Operatives of the Iloilo Provincial Police Office’s Anti-Illegal Drugs Special Operations Task Group, the Regional Special Operations Group, the Iloilo Province Public Safety Company, and the Passi City Police Station seized from the suspects three big sachets of shabu, weighing 60 grams and estimated to be worth P360,000, several drug paraphernalia, cash, and a mobile phone.

Senior Inspector John Ryan Doceo, chief of the IPPO-PAIDSOTG, said Panes and Milla have long been monitored to be engaged in illegal drug trade in the 4th district of Iloilo.

Doceo said the two allegedly sourced their supply of shabu from the Luzon area, and sent to them through courier companies, which they in turn paid via a money remittance center. Panes was monitored to be sending big amounts of money to a man with a Chinese-sounding name, he said.

Panes and Milla are now detained at the Passi City Police Station with drug charges filed against them.  (FREEMAN)