Drug dealer linked to terror group arrested in Lanao del Sur
Mindanao Armed Conflict • 15:00 PM Wed Feb 16, 2022
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By:
John M. Unson
Samsodin Pascan, third from left, is now detained. (From PDEA-BARMM)
BALABAGAN, Lanao del Sur --- Authorities seized P680,000 worth of shabu from a peddler linked to the Dawlah Islamiya, entrapped at Barangay Macao here noontime Tuesday.
Samsodin Pascan is now in the custody of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.
He shall be prosecuted for violation of the Republic Act 9165, also known as the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002.
The 52-year-old Pascan is a resident of Barangay Pabrica in Marogong, Lanao del Sur.
Highly-placed Army and police intelligence sources told reporters Wednesday Pascan shared proceeds of his shabu peddling activities to the Dawlah Islamiya.
The Dawlah Islamiya is a local terror group, operating in the fashion of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, tagged in a number of deadly bomb attacks in central Mindanao in the past three years.
Pascan was immediately frisked and cuffed after selling P680,000 worth of shabu to non-uniformed agents of PDEA-BARMM and members of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region who helped entrapped him at Barangay Macao here.
The sting that led to his arrest was supported by the 2nd Marine Battalion, according to PDEA-BARMM.
Besides the 100 grams of shabu, PDEA-BARMM agents also confiscated from Pascan two M14 assault rifles.
Barangay Macao, where he was entrapped, is not too distant from Barangay Lumbac, where personnel of the Philippine Navy’s 1st Marine Brigade killed in a shootout two weeks ago Dawlah Islamiya bomb-maker Saifuddin Ayok.
Community elders, who reported to the PDEA-BARMM the drug trafficking activities of Pascan, have confirmed that he remitted to the Dawlah Islamiya a fraction of his monthly earnings from his distribution of shabu to contacts in Lanao del Sur province.