COTABATO CITY — Five drug dealers were arrested in Sultan Kudarat after their relatives and religious leaders gave them away, the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region (PRO-BAR) reported.
Brig. Gen. Romeo J. Mapacapaz, PRO-BAR director, said on Sunday that policemen had easily arrested five dealers of crystal meth (shabu) in Sultan Kudarat, Maguindanao del Norte while having pot session in their hideout, raided with the help of their relatives and local Muslim preachers long affected by their illegal activities.
Mr. Macapaz said all five suspects are to be prosecuted for violation of the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002 using the P10,000 worth of shabu seized from them as evidence.
The five individuals were clamped down by personnel of the Sultan Kudarat Municipal Police Station, led by Lt. Col. Esmael A. Madin, in an operation last Wednesday in Barangay Limbo in the municipality.
All five suspects are known in Sultan Kudarat and in nearby Cotabato City for their shabu peddling activities.
Mr. Madin said they raided the hideout of the five suspects after villagers, mostly relatives, reported their suspicious convergence in their den and were, subsequently, noticed sniffing shabu together.
The elders of the suspects had told reporters that they had advised them many times over to change for good, but they did not listen.
Local officials said among the tipsters who led Mr. Madin’s team to the lair of the suspects, from where they sold shabu to local contacts, were Muslim preachers in Sultan Kudarat supporting their municipal government’s anti-narcotics campaign. — John Felix M. Unson
