DAGUPAN CITY -- The Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) seized about P5.36 million worth of shabu and marijuana in two drug busts that started Tuesday night, February 4, in Barangays Malued and Lucao here.
In an interview Wednesday, February 5, PDEA Pangasinan team leader Retchie Camacho said the month-long surveillance operation resulted in the arrest of three suspects, two of them are foreigners.
In the first of the two high-impact operations (HIO), authorities recovered from the suspects two large rolls and four medium packets of suspected dried marijuana leaves weighing around 2.2 kilograms worth P300,000, and two digital weighing scales along with the boodle money used.
A 700-gram shabu worth P4.7 million, enclosed in a re-sealable plastic pouch inside a liquor box, was also seized from the suspects.
Camacho said the operation was inside an apartment in Barangay Malued where Yemeni Hood Abdulqawi Salem and Sudanese Mohamed Abbas Mohamed Yassin, both of legal age, were arrested.
The foreigners were alleged members of a large-scale drug web syndicate operating in various provinces and regions around Pangasinan, he said.
"The suspects operate in Pangasinan, Region 3 (Central Luzon), and also at the National Capital Region and Calabarzon (Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal and Quezon). They have networks which also operate under the syndicate they belonged to," he said.
In a separate operation in Barangay Lucao, authorities confiscated a knapsack containing three large rolls of suspected dried marijuana leaves weighing three kilos worth P360,000 from the supplier of the two foreigners earlier arrested.
"The suspect, Troy Darell Aquino of San Jacinto, Pangasinan, goes to Baguio City and takes his supply upon order," Camacho said.
Also sequestered from the suspect were a Toyota Fortuner and the boodle money used to entrap him.
Aquino is the son of a former vice mayor in San Jacinto town.
The suspects, detained at the PDEA office, will face charges for violation of the Republic Act 9165, or the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002. (PNA)