Police arrest 9 drug traffickers in Maguindanao
Local News • 12:00 PM Sat Jun 22, 2019
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By:
John M. Unson
MAGUINDANAO --- Nine large-scale drug dealers with links to an outlawed Islamic State-inspired group were arrested in separate police operations in the province Friday.
Reports reaching the office of Brig. Gen. Marni Marcos of the Regional Police Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao indicated that the first to fall were three operators of a drug ring in Datu Anggal Midtimbang, Maguindanao.
Juhari Edzalama, Abdulsallam Indag and their leader, Hariking Amat, were intercepted by personnel of the municipal police in Barangay Brar, Datu Anggal Midtimbang while on a motorcycle together en route to somewhere else to deliver shabu to a contact.
They are now detained at the Datu Anggal Midtimbang municipal police office, to be prosecuted for violation of Republic Act 9165, also known as the Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002.
The suspects have long been subject of surveillance by operatives led by Major Alexander Butuan, chief of the municipal police.
Six others were also arrested in a separate police operation Friday in nearby Datu Odin Sinsuat town in Maguindanao.
Cohorts Nomer Kamid, Michael Balindong, Grachalla Usman, Norain Ensyek, Jonathan Guiamalon and Jomar Buayan fell in an entrapment laid in Barangay Upper Capiton, Datu Odin Sinsuat by municipal police personnel led by Major Erwin Tabora.
They were together when one of them turned over shabu to a plainclothes police agent in a sting that resulted in their arrest.
All six men arrested by Tabora’s team are now in the custody of the Datu Odin Sinsuat municipal police.
Tabora said the six men shall be prosecuted for trafficking of narcotics.
Police and Army intelligence sources confirmed to reporters Saturday that the suspects arrested by PRO-BARMM units in Datu Anggal Midtimbang and in Datu Odin Sinsuat remitted part of their earnings to leaders of the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters.
The group, operating in the fashion of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, is blamed for all deadly bombings in central Mindanao in recent years.