ILOILO City – Police claimed that the fruit vendor they arrested last week was using his business as front for illegal drug trade.
Jesse Benza of Barangay Legaspi dela Rama, City Proper was detained in Police Station 1.
During a buy-bust operation at 1:30 p.m. on Sept. 5, undercover officers bought from the 48-year-old a big plastic pack of suspected shabu for P10,000.
Benza pulled the plastic pack out of the basket containing lanzones he was supposedly selling, said Senior Inspector Kennith Bermejo, chief of the Police Regional Office 6’s Regional Drug Enforcement Unit.
“He (Benza) is a drug supplier here,” Bermejo claimed. “He uses his lanzones business as front.”
Sixteen more plastic packs of the same substance were seized from him during the operation on Muelle Loney Street. Including the buy-bust item, the recoveries were valued at an estimated P160,000.
Benza denied using or selling illegal drugs. He insisted that he was just a fruit vendor. But he refused to comment on the sachet of shabu that police said was placed in his fruit basket./PN
