4 arrested in Cotabato City, Lanao Sur anti-narc operations

COTABATO CITY --- Four government “high-value targets” fell in separate drug entrapment operations here and in Lanao del Sur Wednesday.

Patrick Saavedra and spouse, Monambai, were arrested in the act of selling P136,000 worth of shabu, to non-uniformed agents of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao on Wednesday night in Barangay Poblacion II here.

Juvenal Azurin, director of PDEA-BARMM, said Thursday the couple is now detained in their office, to be prosecuted for violation of Republic Act 9165, or the Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002.

Azurin said the two drug dealers were entrapped with the help of personnel of the Cotabato City police office.

The arrest of Saavedra and his wife was preceded by a police-led drug sting in Barangay Pindulunan in Tugaya, Lanao del Sur that resulted in the capture of two elusive drug dealers in the province, the cohorts Ibra Gulam and Abubacar Dilabayan.

Col. Madzgani Mukaram, Lanao del Sur’s police director, told reporters Thursday the team that entrapped the duo confiscated from them almost P14,000 worth of shabu.

Mukaram said members of the Army’s 55^th Infantry Battalion and vigilant local officials were instrumental in the arrest of Gulam and Dilabayan.

“Our operatives also recovered from them a weighing scale they use in repacking their hot merchandise. They are `big time’ shabu dealers obviously,” Mukaram said.