Shabu dealers linked to terror group arrested
Mindanao Armed Conflict • 13:15 PM Wed Mar 8, 2023
890
By:
John M. Unson
Suspected drug peddler Fahad Macauyag after his arrest in Pigcawayan, North Cotabato. (Photo from Pigcawayan MPS)
COTABATO CITY --- The police seized P643,000 worth of shabu from two different dealers, both linked to the Dawlah Islamiya, entrapped in separate operations Tuesday in Cotabato province.
In a statement Wednesday, the office of Brig. Gen. Jimili Macaraeg, director of the Police Regional Office 12, identified the suspects as Fahad Macauyag, 44, and the 32-year-old Mojahid Silva, now locked in detention facilities.
Silva was immediately arrested after selling shabu to non-uniformed personnel of the Tulunan Municipal Police Station in a sting on Tuesday afternoon in Barangay Sibsib in Tulunan, Cotabato.
Barangay leaders and relatives privy to Silva’s peddling of shabu in a number of barangays in Tulunan told reporters he shared earnings to leaders of the Dawlah Islamiya terror group based in nearby towns in Maguindanao del Sur.
Pigcawayan Municipal Police Station commander Police Major Andres Sumugat Jr said Macauyag, who hails from Barangay Gang, Sultan Kudarat, Maguindanao del Norte, was nabbed after he sold his illegal merchandise to an undercover agent, disguised as drug dependents, in Barangay Poblacion at past 8 p.m.
Officials of units under the Army’s 6th Infantry Division based in Cotabato’s adjoining Midsayap, Aleosan and Pigcawayan towns and senior members of the peace and order councils in the three municipalities said like Siva, Macauyag also has links with the Dawlah Islamiya.
He was, in fact, suspected of having been involved in last year’s bombing of a passenger bus in Aleosan that left a grade school child dead and hurt a dozen others.