THE suspected consignee of a drug shipment from abroad was nabbed by authorities in Barangay Pasil, Cebu City on Monday afternoon, July 18, 2022.
Operatives from the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency in Central Visayas (PDEA 7), Bureau of Customs and Inter-Agency Drug Interdiction Task Group of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport launched a “controlled delivery operation” for the package that was traced to a Lunel Garcia Paden.
According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, a controlled delivery is a “technique allowing suspicious shipments or cargo to leave, pass through or enter a jurisdiction with the knowledge and supervision of authorities” to identify the person/s involved in an unlawful activity.
Seized from Paden were around 3,000 ecstasy tablets amounting to P6.7 million. Each tablet reportedly cost P2,250.
PDEA 7 Director Levi Ortiz said they received information from their head office last June about the delivery of the party drugs to Cebu with the Netherlands as its origin and Paden as its receiver as indicated in the box.
Ortiz said they immediately put Paden under surveillance after receiving the report and waited for him to receive the package in his residence in Barangay Pasil on Monday afternoon, July 18, before finally arresting him.
Ortiz said they are now coordinating with their counterparts in the Netherlands regarding the sender, whose identity is known already.
According to Paden, he was instructed by a friend who is in jail to receive the package from the Netherlands, a country in Europe.
Meanwhile, anti-narcotics operatives of the Mandaue City Police Office (MCPO) and the PDEA 7 seized P884,000 worth of illegal drugs after arresting Jude Troyo Tahanlangit in a drug bust on Sunday, July 17.
Tahanlangit had been placed under surveillance for two weeks before his arrest, said MCPO Director Franco Rudolf Oriol.
The suspects will be charged for violating Republic 9165, or the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2022. (AYB, BBT, TPT, HIC)