3 suspects in PDEA custody has alleged links with Maute

COTABATO CITY --- Authorities are guarding closely three drug traffickers arrested for possession ofP6.8 million worth of shabu due to their reported links with the Islamic State-inspired Mauter terror cell.The suspects, Samsudin Camid, Ronnie Marohom and Raisuli Marohom, all ethnic Meranaos from Lanao del Sur, are detained in the office here of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency-Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao since they fell in an entrapment in Parang, Maguindanao on Thursday.Juvenal Azurin, director of PDEA-ARMM, said Saturday the three drug dealers were arrested after a tradeoff with agents in disguise in an operation on Thursday in the town proper of Parang.Parang is a seaside town in the first district of Maguindanao, not too distant from Lanao del Sur.Azurin said it was Meranao elders and local officials in Lanao del Sur who informed them of the drug-trafficking activities of the three suspects, now clamped down in their office.The detainees, now awaiting prosecution, are being guarded by PDEA-ARMM personnel tightly after relatives have reported that they have blood ties with certain members of the Maute terror group that operates in the fashion of the Islamic State.The slain founders of the group, the siblings Omarkhayam and Abdullah Maute, were said to have funded their activities in Lanao del Sur with money collected from drug dealers that they allowed to distribute shabu in several towns in the province when they were still alive.They were both killed one after another during last year’s five-month conflict in Marawi City that they instigated.PDEA-ARMM agents recovered from Camid and his companions P6.8 million worth of shabu in a sting initiated with the help of the Police Regional Office-ARMM and the Army’s 37thInfantry Battalion.Azurin said the operation was also assisted by the Regional Highway Patrol Group-ARMM and the Parang municipal police office.The arrest of Camid and his two accomplices preceded the raid by the police and the 7thMarine Battalion of the house in Upi, Maguindanao of a former mayor in another town who is wanted for alleged trafficking of narcotics.The raiding team, led by Chief Inspector Erwin Tabora of the Upi municipal police, recovered shabu, assorted ammunition and a grenade projectile in the house of Montasir Sabal in Barangay Blensong.Local officials said Sabal built his house in Barangay Blensong, an upland area in Upi, when he was still mayor of Talitay, Maguindanao.Sabal has been missing since agents of PDEA-ARMM and the Criminal Investigation and Detectiom Group and units of the Army’s 6thInfantry Division raided his house in Talitay in 2016 and found there shabu, assault rifles, .50 caliber machineguns and mortar launchers.The 6th ID was then under the now Armed Forces chief, Gen. Carlito Galvez, Jr.Maguindanao’s Talitay town, located along the Liguasan Delta, was known then as the shabu capital of the province.Sabal was officially removed from office last year by the Ombudsman for owning lands and houses that he did not declare openly as required by state regulations.