5 Lanao del Sur drug den operators busted
Local News • 15:30 PM Mon Jun 5, 2023
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By:
John M. Unson
The five men who fell in a drug sting in Saguiaran, Lanao del Sur are now detained. (From PDEA-BARMM)
COTABATO CITY --- Anti-narcotics agents clamped down five alleged drug den operators, said to have links with the Dawlah Islamiya, in a sting Saturday in Saguiaran town in Lanao del Sur.
Christian Frivaldo, director of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, said Monday the suspects, Sadat Pangcoga, Abolkair Pangcoga, Michael Rambangon, Khalil Bangkero and Saif Pangcoga, were entrapped in Barangay Pagalamatan in Saguiaran with the help of local officials and units of the Lanao del Sur Provincial Police Office.
Local executives have confirmed that the suspects together operated a clandestine drug den in Sitio Bangon in Barangay Pagalamatan.
Senior members of different municipal peace and order councils in Lanao del Sur, among them public school officials, told reporters Monday the five men shared proceeds of their earnings from peddling shabu to the Dawlah Islamiya, a local terrorist group led by religious extremists fomenting hatred for non-Muslims.
Frivaldo said the suspects were immediately detained after selling P442,000 worth of shabu to non-uniformed PDEA-BARMM agents and policemen.
He said they are to prosecute the suspects for violation of the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002 using the shabu confiscated from them as evidence.
PDEA-BARMM agents had also confiscated from the five men a fragmentation grenade and a .38 caliber revolver.