Cop, cohort fall in Cotabato City firearms sale entrapment

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — Law-enforcement agents arrested a policeman and an alleged member of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front after selling to them three assault rifles marked “Armed Forces Property” in an entrapment operation here on Friday.

Agents of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, led by Lt. Col. Ariel Huesca, immediately frisked and cuffed the policeman, who is assigned at the Kabuntalan Municipal Police Station in Maguindanao del Norte province, and his accomplice, said to be a member of the MILF’s Task Force Ittihad.

In separate statements on Saturday, Huesca and the regional director of the Bangsamoro police, Brig. Gen. Allan Nobleza, both requested reporters not to reveal, meantime, the identities of the two suspects, while intelligence agents are still trying to locate their cohorts here and in nearby towns.

Huesca said the duo was arrested after selling two 5.56 M16 rifles and an M4 carbine, of the same caliber, to plainclothes CIDG-BAR agents in a tradeoff along Sousa Street in Barangay Rosary Heights 1 here.

Huesca said the sting that led to the arrest of the two suspects and confiscation from them of the firearms marked "Property of the Armed Forces of the Philippines" was laid with the help of informants privy to their illegal gun trade activities.

Besides the three assault rifles, CIDG agents had also seized from the two suspects an Israeli Galil assault rifle and a 9 millimeter Glock pistol. Their vehicle, a red Toyota Innova, was also impounded.