Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Courier caught while handing 5 20-gram packs of shabu to a PDEA asset at pier area
GOVERNMENT agents yesterday arrested in a buy-bust a suspected drug courier from Ozamiz City and seized from him P100,000 worth of shabu.
A Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) 7 team pounced on Rocky Sialana, 32, of Barangay Sta.Cruz, Ozamiz City, after he handed five packs of shabu, weighing 20 grams each, to a civilian asset.
The police have said Manila and Ozamiz City are the sources of illegal drugs in Cebu City.
Sialana had just gotten off from an inter-island ferry when the buy-bust took place at a shipping firm compound on Pier 5, Cebu City round 8 a.m.
Sialana admitted that he carried the illegal stuff, which he placed in a paper bag. He said he has been in illegal drugs trade for one year.
However, his companion, a certain Jun-Jun, managed to elude arrest. He remained at large at press time.
PDEA 7 Agent Levi Valmoria said that it was Jun-Jun whom their civilian asset had transacted with to deliver five packs of illegal drugs.
Sialana and the seized shabu were presented during a press conference at the PDEA 7 headquarters on R.R. Landon St., Cebu City yesterday afternoon.
The PDEA was set to file illegal drug peddling charges against both Sialana and Jun-Jun before the Cebu City Prosecutor’s Office yesterday.
Authorities have said shabu has long overtaken marijuana in the list of the most commonly used illegal drugs.
In September 2004, PDEA agents and the police raided what they described as the laboratories of one of the largest shabu manufacturing operations in Southeast Asia.
Hundreds of kilos of processed shabu, precursor chemicals and lab equipment were seized.
Eleven men, mostly foreigners, are undergoing trial in Mandaue City, after their arrest in the warehouse that was turned into a laboratory in Barangay Umapad. Two other converted warehouses were found in Barangays Paknaan and Looc. (GC)
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (September 25, 2007 issue)
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