P1.4-M worth of shabu seized in 2 anti-narco stings in BARMM

COTABATO CITY — Law-enforcement agents confiscated P1.4 million worth of shabu in separate operations in Barangay Poblacion 5 in Cotabato City and in nearby Sultan Kudarat town in Maguindanao del Norte on Wednesday.

Agents of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao immediately arrested Soraida Dumagay Mato and her male accomplice, Mehto Akon Mamatas, after selling to them P1 million worth of shabu in a hotel along Don Rufino Alonzo Avenue in Barangay Poblacion 5 here.

Gil Cesario Castro, director of PDEA-BARMM, told reporters on Thursday that Mato and Mamantas are now both clamped down in their detention facility at the PC Hill Complex in Cotabato City.

A police team had also seized P340,000 worth of shabu from Guiamlod Angkolan Osama, entrapped on the same day by non-uniformed policemen in Barangay Salimbao in Sultan Kudarat town in Maguindanao del Norte, less than a kilometer away from the border of the province and this city.

Brig. Gen. Prexy Tanggawohn, director of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, on Thursday said that Osama was immediately detained after turning over P340,000 worth of shabu to policemen led by Sultan Kudarat’s municipal police chief, Lt. Col. Esmael Madin, in a tradeoff in Barangay Salimbao.

Madin, in separate reports to Tanggawohn and the Maguindanao del Norte Provincial Police Office, said that the entrapment operation that resulted in the arrest of Osama was planned with the help of his relatives aware of his peddling of shabu in Sultan Kudarat and in nearby towns.