P2-M worth shabu seized in Maguindanao del Norte

COTABATO CITY - Two more shabu dealers suspected of being connected to local terrorists yielded P2 million worth of shabu in a police entrapment operation in nearby Sultan Kudarat, Maguindanao del Norte at noontime Thursday.

Brig. Gen. Allan Nobleza, director of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, said in an initial report released an hour after the anti-narcotics sting that the relatives Fahad Tumagantang Sapal and Faisal Giomla Sapal are now both locked in a detention facility of the Sultan Kudarat Municipal Police Station.

Nobleza said the duo were entrapped in Barangay Simuay in Sultan Kudarat by a team led by Lt. Col. Esmael Madin, chief of the Sultan Kudarat municipal police.

Local officials and traditional Moro datus had asked Madin and Nobleza to investigate on the backgrounds of the two suspects, both from Barangay Kitango in Datu Saudi Ampatuan town in Maguindanao del Sur.

Datu Saudi Ampatuan is close to towns where there are enclaves of the allies Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters and the Dawlah Islamiya.

Both groups have a reputation for bombing buses and commercial establishments if owners refuse to pay protection money every month and are known too for providing drug traffickers sanctuary in exchange for shares in their earnings.

Nine Dawlah Islamiya members surnamed Giomla and Sapal had separately surrendered to units in Maguindanao del Sur of the Army’s 6^th Infantry Division and PRO-BAR since late 2022.

Suspicions on the seeming links of the two now detained shabu dealers to local terrorists were bolstered by the confiscation from them of a .45 caliber pistol each.

More than 10 drug dealers who were eventually proven to have connections with the BIFF and the Dawlah Islamiya fell in separate entrapment operations by the police in Maguindanao del Norte and Maguindanao del Sur provinces in the past six months.