ILOILO City – Shabu worth a total of P570,000 was seized in two separate antidrug operations of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) and Regional Drug Enforcement Unit (RDEU) of the Police Regional Office 6 targeting a high-value target and his runner.
One of the arrested suspects claimed an inmate at the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP) male dormitory in Barangay Ungka, Jaro district was a contract for drug transactions.
Suspects Arthur Julius Te, 32, of Barangay Jereos, La Paz district and Stephen John Braza, 27, were taken to the detention facility of PDEA-6 at Fort San Pedro yesterday afternoon.
First to fall was Te. He was arrested after selling to a poseur buyer 52 grams of shabu around 4:30 p.m. in Barangay Persident Roxas, City Proper.
An hour after, Braza fell in a follow-up operation in Barangay Seminario, Jaro district, according to PDEA-6 spokesperson David Abraham Garcia.
Ten sachets of shabu weighing a total of five grams were seized from Braza.
Garcia said Te and Braza belonged to the Prevendido drug group, and the combined shabu confiscated from them had an estimated street value of P570,000.
“We negotiated with them for two weeks prior to the operation yesterday,” he said.
On the other hand, RDEU chief Senior Inspector Kennith Bermejo said Te identified his jail contact as a certain Paulino Zamora, a drug suspect.
According to Bermejo, Te and Zamora were friends.
Te was detained at the jail facility in Barangay Ungka, Jaro for seven years and was only released in April this year after the court dismissed his case.
Superintendent Amelito Fuentes, jail warded, vowed to conduct an investigation./PN
