AWOL cop, 2 others nabbed for drugs in Lucena

LUCENA CITY – A renegade policeman and two other suspected illegal drug pushers were arrested in a buy-bust operation Thursday night, police said.

A report from the Lucena City police station said anti-illegal drugs operatives collared Jose Riezel Reyes, 40; Michael Martirez, 44; and a 16-year-old suspect after they sold “shabu” (crystal meth) to undercover police in a transaction inside a subdivision in Barangay (village) Gulang-Gulang around 9:30 p.m.

The suspects yielded 14 sachets of shabu weighing a total of 3.52 grams with estimated Dangerous Drugs Board value of P6,512.

Police tagged Reyes as the leader of the group and identified him as a policeman on AWOL (absent without leave). The report did not specify the police rank and his former place of assignment.

The operatives also seized Reyes’s service firearm, a caliber .9-mm Beretta with a magazine and five bullets. Delfin T. Mallari Jr./lzb