Top drug suspect killed in Compostela Valley

TAGUM CITY, Davao del Norte—A high-value drug suspect in Southern Mindanao was killed and some P300,000 worth of illegal drugs were recovered during a raid in Nabunturan, Compostela Valley, police on Saturday said.

 
Joint police, anti-narcotics agents and soldiers carried out the raid in Mainit village on Wednesday, killing Adrian Sicad, Chief Insp. Andrea dela Cerna, Southern Mindanao police spokesperson, said.

 
Quoting a report from Nabunturan police station, dela Cerna said the 40-year-old suspect – who was also known as Ian Sicad – was listed as number eight on Region 11’s list of top drug suspects.

 
She said elements of the Nabunturan police and the provincial anti-drug enforcement unit – backed by soldiers and militiamen from the army’s 25th Infantry Battalion – swooped down on Sicad’s hideout at Purok (Community) 10, Sitio (Sub-village) Tindalo to serve a search warrant issued by a local court against the suspect at 11:35 a.m.

 
The report, however, did not give details how the suspect died.

 
Dela Cerna said authorities recovered during the operation some 25 grams of “shabu” (methamphetamine hydrochloride) valued at P300,000 and several pieces of drug paraphernalia.

 
On Tuesday, a Charlie Babaylo, 28, farmer, and listed as Nabunturan’s number two drug personality, was also arrested in a buy-bust operation at his house in Poblacion village around 10:40 a.m.

 
Confiscated from the suspect were a sachet of suspected shabu and the P500-bill used as marked money.

 
Babaylo was now under police custody.