Drug trader held

ILOILO CITY—Police on Saturday arrested a suspected supplier of illegal drugs and confiscated “Ecstasy” pills worth around P1 million at a resort parking lot in Bacolod City.

Elements of a joint buy-bust operation conducted by various police units arrested Angelo Bongco, 40, at the parking lot of the posh Palmas del Mar resort in Barangay Singcang-Airport around 7 p.m., said Chief Supt. Cipriano Querol Jr., Western Visayas police director, citing a report.

The police operatives on Saturday confiscated from Jimenez 617 suspected Ecstasy pills with an estimated market value of P924,000. On Sunday, 100 more tablets were recovered at the parking lot in a follow-up operation bringing the volume to 717 with a market value of P1,075,500, said Senior Supt. Ricardo de la Paz, Bacolod City police chief, in a telephone interview.

This is the biggest volume of Ecstasy pills confiscated in the region in a decade, Querol said.

Also confiscated from Bongco were P8,700 cash, a Honda CRV vehicle, a magazine with five ammunition of a .45 -caliber hand gun, two cellphones, several identification cards and bank documents.

Bongco, a contractor and a resident of Henrietta Heights in Bacolod City, was detained at the Bacolod City Police Office.

“Our information shows that he gets his supply from abroad and distributes it nationwide and not just in Bacolod,” De la Paz said.