Three more drug dealers arrested in Maguindanao province

MAGUINDANAO --- Authorities arrested before dawn Wednesday three more large-scale drug traffickers in Maguindanao province, two of them women, in a renewed crackdown that began last week.Agents of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (PDEA-ARMM) and local police personnel cornered the cohorts Kehar Dido, his wife Tayalin, and a female relative, Bai Dido, in Barangay Pinguiamin southeast of Datu Odin Sinsuat, Maguindanao.They are among the top ten most wanted drug dealers in the municipality.Chief Inspector Achmad Alibonga of the Datu Odin Sinsuat municipal police said the raid on the houses of the suspects, located along a stretch of the Cotabato-Isulan Highway in Barangay Pinguiaman, was covered with warrants from a local court.The PDEA-ARMM and the Datu Odin Sinsuat municipal police learned of the presence of the three drug peddlers in their hideout from local officials.The three suspects did not resist arrest when they sensed that PDEA-ARMM agents and policemen led by Alibonga have surrounded their houses and were ready to engage in a gunfight if they resist.Barangay officials said the suspects operated a shabu distribution network in Barangay Pinguiaman and nearby farming enclaves in Datu Odin Sinsuat.The team that arrested them recovered in their houses shabu, a caliber .45 pistol, and mobile phones they used in dealing with contacts in different barangays.Their arrest was preceded by a joint operation by the PDEA-ARMM and the police last weekend in Barangays Making and Sarmiento in Parang, Maguindanao that resulted in the arrest of 11 conniving drug dealers circulating more than P5 million worth of shabu weekly in the two barangays and nearby towns in the first district of the province.