Drug suspect nabbed in Iligan City; P5-M worth of shabu seized

CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY – Police authorities in Northern Mindanao arrested a suspected drug trafficker and seized an estimated P5 million in shabu during a buy-bust in Iligan City.

Supt. Surki Sereñas, Northern Mindanao police spokesperson, said on Tuesday that Jose Booc, 29, married, and resident of Iligan, was arrested while attempting to sell the illegal substance to undercover operatives near a school in Barangay Tubod on Monday evening.

Sereñas said Booc yielded a kilogram of shabu.

He said the apprehension of the suspect was a product of weeks of intelligence buildup.

“We will continue our campaign against illegal drugs and will further intensify the war until the last pusher and the drug trafficker is either placed behind bars or neutralized,” Chief Supt. Noel Constantino, the Northern Mindanao police chief, said.

Last Monday’s buy-bust was the second time that police operatives were able to seize a fairly large quantity of illegal drugs in Iligan.

Last September 1, police confiscated a kilo of shabu in a buy-bust in Barangay Saray there.

In Digos City, a fireman was arrested for allegedly selling shabu to undercover police operatives during a buy-bust operation on Sunday.

Supt. Demetrius Taypin, the chief of the Digos City Police Office, identified the arrested fireman as Senior Fire Officer 1 Leonil Hao Morata, 49, married and presently assigned at the Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP) in Digos City as an administrative and finance officer.

Also seized from Morata was a SAM Eagle .45 pistol with one loaded magazine and the P500 marked money used in the buy-bust operation.

Taypin said Morata had already been charged under the Comprehensive Anti-illegal Drugs Act. JE