THIS time, they used cars to hide the illegal drugs and transport them from island to island to Cebu. How does one evade arrest when trafficking illegal drugs? Traffickers know there can be many ways and a little creativity on their part can make all work out fine.
There are many ways to trade illegal drugs, but what police revealed Friday, Oct. 18, 2019, was a variant of the modus.
The methods employed by drug traders to escape detection by law enforcement agents can range from the simple to the complex. Some are just plain creative.
Take the case of the bust in Gandara, Samar, Thursday. It could be Visayas’s biggest haul of illegal drugs in a single bust when police found 88.49 kilos of shabu with a street value of almost P600 million. Arrested were six persons, including a Grade 7 student and a woman who is four months pregnant, mostly from Cebu City.
Police said the suspects came in two vehicles loaded with a total of 44 sealed blue plastic bags containing a white crystalline substance believed to be shabu (methamphetamine hydrochloride). The vehicles came all the way from Manila and were bound for Cebu. But they took the long route.
Reports said the cars were loaded on a ship from Manila to Calbayog, Samar. From Calbayog, since there was no ferry leaving for Cebu that time, they decided they would go to Ormoc City to catch a ferry to Cebu. While on their way, police caught them in a checkpoint in Gandara, Samar.
Part of the drug traders’ modus was to use public parking spaces. In Manila, the vehicles were parked separately in two malls’ parking areas. In Cebu, they were to be left also in a mall’s parking area, to be picked up by another group.
A roundabout way of bringing drugs from Manila to Cebu, but the traffickers were hoping they would not get caught.
This is another version of the traffickers’ way to bring illegal drugs to Cebu.
This modification in their methods poses yet another challenge in the campaign against illegal drugs. It shows how enforcement agencies have to be one step ahead of these illegal drugs traders who can be creative as they seek new ways to continue the trade.