Police asset, drug pusher shot dead during buy-bust operation

What should have been another successful antidrug operation by Makati policemen in the city turned into a bloody encounter that left dead a suspected drug dealer known as Scarface and the police asset who posed as the buyer.

According to a police report, Kevin Orsando or Scarface sensed during a buy-bust operation at Barangay Cembo on Saturday that the informant, Michael Betcher, had a police companion and fired “successive shots” at him, killing him outright.

Betcher, a 45-year-old Manila resident, had been asked by Makati policemen to buy P500 worth of “shabu” (crystal meth) from Orsando.

Operatives of the Makati police’s Station Drug Enforcement Unit (SDEU) rushed to the scene after hearing the shots, leading to a firefight that resulted in Orsando’s death, the report added.

Only hours earlier, during a separate buy-bust operation, the SDEU policemen caught five drug suspects who pointed to Orsando as their source of illegal drugs.