P27.2-M worth shabu seized in Zamboanga City entrapment operation

MANILA, Philippines — Plainclothes policemen seized P27.2 million worth of shabu from four alleged dealers entrapped in Zamboanga City on Wednesday afternoon. 

Ben Kalbi Basaludin, 33, Nadmar Elyas, 38, Abdul, Wali Handrang Jala, 32 and a 30-year-old woman named Noralyn Tahil Abdul, are now detained, awaiting prosecution for violation of the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002.

Col. Alexander Lorenzo, Zamboanga City police director, on Thursday said that the four suspects fell in a sting at about 4 p.m. Wednesday in Purok 11, Acacia Drive in Barangay Calarian. This was conducted with the help of tipsters and units of the military’s Western Mindanao Command.

Lorenzo said that the four suspects voluntarily turned themselves in when they found out that they had sold more than a kilo of shabu to non-uniformed anti-narcotics operatives of the Zamboanga City Police Office and the Police Regional Office-9.

Lorenzo said the four suspects, now locked in one of their detention facilities, are to be prosecuted for violation of the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act using the P27.2 million worth shabu confiscated from them as evidence.  — With reports from Rosette Adel