4 drug sellers to pineapple plantation workers busted – BusinessWorld Online
COTABATO CITY — Four drug dealers, long under surveillance for selling their illegal merchandise in villages around vast pineapple plantations in Tupi town in South Cotabato, finally fell in a police entrapment operation on Tuesday.
Major Rovi L. Jardenil, Tupi municipal police chief, and the director of the Police Regional Office-12, Brig. Gen. Arnold P. Ardiente, separately announced on Thursday that all four suspects, one of them a 34-year-old woman, are now detained, charged with violation of the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002.
Residents of barangays around the vast pineapple plantations in South Cotabato’s adjoining Tupi and Polomolok towns had confirmed to reporters that all four suspects sold crystal meth (shabu) and marijuana to buyers in far-flung areas in both areas.
They had reportedly eluded earlier attempts by local officials and non-uniformed policemen to intercept them while distributing drugs to their contacts, a number of them entrapped one after another in recent months.
Mr. Jardenil, in a report to the South Cotabato Provincial Police Office and to Mr. Ardiente, said the suspects were immediately arrested after selling P81,600 worth of shabu to non-uniformed personnel of the Tupi Municipal Police Station, disguised as ordinary villagers, in a tradeoff on Tuesday night in a secluded area in Barangay Palian. — John Felix M. Unson