4 held as house behind Pasay barangay hall yields P5-M ‘shabu’

Four people were arrested in a buy-bust operation conducted by the police at a house just a few steps behind a barangay hall in Pasay City on Friday night.

Members of the Southern Police District Drug Enforctement Unit were expecting to find only a few packets of “shabu” (crystal meth) from the house of Arnel Tesoro at 1950 Tramo Street in Barangay 61.

This was after Tesoro, who used the alias Lucky, received the P5,000 marked money from a poseur buyer in exchange for 10 grams of the drug.

But the team who seized the suspect after the transaction and proceeded to raid his house found a ziplock bag containing about a kilo of shabu, which could fetch up to P5 million, according to Chief Insp. Jerry Amindalan, the unit head.

Also arrested were Tesoro’s live-in partner Moana Jasmine Mina, Arvin Michael Cruz and Sean Al Stephen Tabangcura, who allegedly yielded more sachets of shabu and marijuana as well as drug paraphernalia when the police found them inside the house.

Amindalan said Tesoro took over the drug peddling operations of his elder brother Archibald, who was arrested last year.

He said it surprised him that Barangay 61 officials were not aware of Tesoro’s business.

“Supposedly, they should know that their neighbor is involved in drugs because Oplan Tokhang has been implemented for more than a year now,” Amindalan said. “They should have made him surrender.”

But Barangay 61 chair Robin Roque insisted that they didn’t know Tesoro was a pusher. “We couldn’t see what’s going on inside their house; the door was always locked.”