MANILA, Philippines – Some P25 million worth of cocaine was seized while two persons, including a customs employee, were arrested during an illegal drugs buy-bust operation conducted by the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) at a hotel in Quezon City past midnight Sunday.
PDEA Metro Manila Regional Office (MMRO) Director Wilkins Villanueva said that operatives of his unit and PDEA 4A conducted the buy-bust operations at around 12:30 a.m. at a hotel in Quezon City. He declined to identify the hotel.
During the operations, he said that they were able to seize five kilograms of cocaine that is worth around P25 million.
Villanueva said that they also arrested Bureau of Customs (BoC) employee Jessie Abuyong and his live-in-partner Maria Lorejas.
He said Abuyong has a rank of clerk III and is assigned to the Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 1 while Lorejas was a losing mayoral candidate in her hometown in the municipality of Mahaplang, Leyte.
He said that PDEA agents posing as buyers managed to arrange with the suspects to buy the cocaine and meet up at the hotel in Quezon City Sunday.
The PDEA official learned that Lorejas managed to get hold of the cocaine from her hometown in Leyte. It can be recalled that last December 2009 two tons of cocaine were dumped off the waters of Leyte from a ship that was en route to Hong Kong.
“I think the suspects still feel that some would intervene on their behalf. We are now waiting as to who might attempt to get them out,” he said.
In the meantime, Villanueva said that the suspects remain detained at the PDEA headquarters in Quezon City and were expected to be subjected to inquest proceedings Sunday afternoon.
The PDEA official said that the suspects will be charged with violation of Section 5 Article 2 of Republic Act 9165 for the sale of dangerous drugs.
Villanueva said that their operation was part of the directive of PDEA Director General Jose Gutierrez Jr. to hit hard on high profile individuals engaged in the drug trade.
Meanwhile, a female listed among the targeted drug personalities of the PDEA and the Philippine National Police (PNP) was arrested last February 3, 2011 in a buy-bust operation at Cabalza Street, Atulayan Sur, Tuguegarao City.
PDEA Director General Jose S. Gutierrez commended operatives of PDEA Region 2, led by Regional Director Juvenal Azurin for successfully apprehending Agnes Badion, who the PDEA described as “a woman who had a history of frequent brushes with the law.”
Authorities confiscated from Badion two heat-sealed transparent packets containing suspected shabu, a marked P500 bill, and an iPhone from China.
According to the PDEA, Badion is a watch-listed drug pusher who was classified as inactive following her arrest last October 3, 2007 for peddling shabu.
She was released after chemical analysis of the confiscated drug evidence yielded negative result for the presence of methamphetamine hydrochloride. Sometime on September 2008 and March 2009, however, she was apprehended and jailed for theft.
Badion would be charged for violation of Section 5 (Sale of Dangerous Drugs) and Section 11
source: Manila Bulletin
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