Drug den owner killed in PDEA-BARMM operation – BusinessWorld Online
COTABATO CITY — A drug den owner, reportedly linked to two local terror groups, was killed while his three cohorts were arrested in a joint operation by the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) and the police in Barangay Old Nunungan in Datu Anggal Midtimbang, Maguindanao del Sur on Wednesday.
Local executives and traditional Moro leaders told reporters on Thursday, that agents of the PDEA-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) and operatives from units of the Maguindanao del Sur Provincial Police Office had seized P224,400 worth of crystal meth (shabu) from the slain drug den operator and his three companions after a brief shootout.
Officials of intelligence units under the Army’s 601st Infantry Brigade securing all of the towns in Maguindanao del Sur and the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region (PRO-BAR) had relayed to reporters that the drug den operator shared fractions of his earnings to certain leaders of the now weakened allies Dawlah Islamiya and the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters, both known for providing sanctuary to large-scale dealers of marijuana and shabu in exchange for money.
PDEA-BARMM agents and policemen, among them intelligence agents from PRO-BAR, planned to peacefully arrest the operator and his three companions, in a trade-off right in their hideout, when he pulled out an M14 combat rifle and opened fire, provoking a gunfight that led to his death.
Gil Cesario P. Castro, director of the PDEA-BARMM, said the three accomplices of the slain drug den operator yielded eventually after their agents and policemen felled him with shots in different parts of his body.
Mr. Castro said all three of them are now detained, to be prosecuted for violation of the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002.
Municipal officials and barangay leaders had confirmed that commanders of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, helped plot the entrapment operation, premised on their earlier reports to officials of PDEA-BARMM and PRO-BAR. — John Felix M. Unson
