PDEA nabs young but ‘big-time’ drug pusher, cohort

A “big-time” young drug pusher and a companion were arrested in a buy bust operation in Quezon City that yielded P360,000 worth of illegal drugs, the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) said Wednesday.

Eighteen-year-old Saber Hayatuddin and Abiya Uyag even offered a P500,000 bribe to the arresting authorities for their release but were rebuffed, the PDEA said.

The two were arrested after they allegedly tried to sell four sachets of shabu or methamphetamine hydrochloride to an undercover PDEA agent on July 24 on Misamis Street in Bago Bantay, Quezon City, the PDEA said in a statement.

PDEA Director General Jose S. Gutierrez Jr. said the agents confiscated sachets containing 20 grams of shabu from Hayatuddin and Uyag.

Hayatuddin also yielded five Banco de Oro passbooks “bearing traces of big transactions as indicated [by] the deposits and withdrawals,” Gutierrez said without specifying the amounts.

The 18-year-old’s arrest, according to Gutierrez, resulted from a series of surveillance operations carried out by PDEA after a taxi driver surrendered 1.9 kilos of shabu concealed in a black backpack which was left by passengers in the trunk of his cab on July 8.

Based on the sworn statement of the taxi driver, whose identity was withheld for his security, he was hired by a “young man” at about 9 p.m. on July 7 to transport small pieces of furniture and personal belongings.

Although the young man did not ride in the taxi, his companions, two young women, got in and requested the taxi driver to take them to a new apartment somewhere in Quezon City. After unloading their personal effects, the two women asked the taxi driver to take them to SM North Edsa.

“It was hours later that the taxi driver discovered that a black backpack was left in his compartment,” the PDEA said.

The investigation later revealed that Hayatuddin was the person who owned the black backpack which contained the 1.9 kilos of shabu surrendered by the taxi driver, the PDEA said.