PDEA seizes 5-kilo marijuana bricks – BusinessWorld Online
COTABATO CITY — Anti-narcotics agents seized P600,000 worth of compressed marijuana bricks found in a warehouse of a cargo forwarding firm in Barangay Salimbao in Sultan Kudarat, Maguindanao del Norte on Saturday.
The operation of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (PDEA-BARMM) that resulted in the confiscation of the parcel, containing five bricks of marijuana leaves, each weighing one kilo, was premised on reports by tipsters aware of its supposed delivery to a retailer in Cotabato City, from a supplier outside of Maguindanao del Norte.
Benjamin C. Recites III, director of PDEA-BARMM, told reporters on Sunday that their agents and counterparts in units under the Bangsamoro regional police are together trying to identify the real sender and consignee of the illegal parcel.
Mr. Recites said their agents had located the parcel in the pile of packages inside the warehouse of the cargo forwarding outfit using a narcotics-sniffing dog.
The management of the cargo-forwarding firm had assured to cooperate with the PDEA-BARMM in identifying the people behind the foiled attempt to ship, apparently from another region to a contact in Cotabato City.
Mr. Recites said PDEA-BARMM agents have also seized P102,000 worth of crystal meth (shabu) from a dealer entrapped in a separate operation also on Saturday in the upland Wao town in Lanao del Sur, planned with the help of municipal and provincial officials.
Mr. Recites said the 41-year-old suspect was immediately frisked and cuffed by their agents after selling P102,000 worth of shabu, weighing 15 grams, during a tradeoff in a secluded area in Wao, one of the 39 towns in Lanao del Sur.
The suspect is now locked in a detention facility, awaiting prosecution for violation of the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002. — John Felix M. Unson