P500k worth of ‘shabu’ seized in Lucena buy-bust

LUCENA CITY –- Police arrested an alleged big-time drug trafficker and seized about P500,000 worth of “shabu” (crystal meth) in a buy-bust operation here early Friday, police said.

Anti-illegal drugs operatives arrested Francisco Esmoso, 32, after he sold shabu to an undercover police officer accompanied by his “informant” in a transaction held at the parking lot of a shopping mall located in Barangay 3 at 12:38 a.m., Colonel Ramil Montilla, Quezon police chief, said in a report.

Esmoso yielded one achet of shabu weighing 103.2 grams with an estimated Dangerous Drugs Board value of P190,587.

The confiscated illegal drugs were worth P566,610 in the street market at the prevailing price of P5,500 per gram.

Authorities tagged the suspect as one of the few remaining big-time distributors of shabu to local street level peddlers.

Police said the suspect was a former drug convict. He was released in October 2018 following a plea bargaining agreement with the court. (Editor: Leti Z. Boniol)