COTABATO CITY — Policemen seized five kilos of crystal meth (shabu) worth P34 million from three dealers, entrapped on Tuesday afternoon in an underground parking area of a mall in Zamboanga City.

Local executives told reporters on Wednesday that all three men arrested, Kashmir Ibno Hayudini, Adong Ybañez Ebang, and Ardison Salim Palajuddin during the entrapment operation are now locked in a police detention facility.

Officials of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region (PRO-BAR) confirmed to reporters on Wednesday that Mr. Ebang and Mr. Palajuddin are large scale shabu dealers in Tawi-Tawi and Sulu, respectively, while Mr. Hayudini is their accomplice in their narcotics trafficking activities in the Zamboanga peninsula.

Police Brig. Gen. Edwin A. Quilates, director of PRO-BAR, said on Wednesday that the three suspects were immediately arrested by plainclothes policemen from the Regional Drug Enforcement Unit 9, led by Lt. Col. Moh Madzdie-Aziz K. Mukaram, and personnel of different units of the Zamboanga City Police Office after selling shabu to them at the basement parking facility of the Southway Square Mall in Barangay Zone IV.

Police anti-narcotics agents confiscated from Mr. Hayudini, Mr. Ebang and Mr. Palajuddin five kilos of shabu, worth P34 million, during the entrapment operation, laid with the help of city and barangay officials and members of the Zamboanga City Peace and Order Council, whose chairperson is Mayor Khymer Adan T. Olaso.

Mr. Quilates told reporters they will use the five kilos of shabu confiscated from the suspects as evidence in prosecuting them for violation of the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002. — John Felix M. Unson

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