Three of the arrested suspects hide their faces when they were presented to the media at Camp Karingal in Quezon City. —NINO JESUS ORBETA
An estimated P1 million worth of cocaine and ecstasy were seized on Sunday from four suspects in a buy-bust operation along Timog Avenue in Quezon City on New Year’s Eve.
Quezon City Police District (QCPD) director Chief Supt. Guillermo Eleazar, who supervised the arrest, said at least 30 grams of cocaine, 200 tablets of ecstasy and liquid ecstasy in bottles were seized from the suspects.
Four suspects
The suspects were identified as Michael Franz Carag, 22; Sarah Jane Sibayan, 25; Nina Recio and Dianne Eloisa Estrella, both 27.
The four were arrested by members of the QCPD and Philippine National Capital Region Police Office at 7:45 a.m. during an entrapment operation in front of Yan Cha restaurant on Timog Avenue.
Antinarcotics operatives seized a big plastic bag and 19 small sachets of cocaine, weighing 30 grams with street value of P300,000; 200 ecstasy tablets worth P500,000 and four bottles of liquid ecstasy or gamma hydroxybuterate amounting to P200,000.
They also confiscated the P100,000 marked money and a Mazda 2 sedan with plate number ABE 7567, the vehicle used by the suspects to transport the illegal drugs.
Eleazar said the intercepted drugs would have been used to supply party drugs intended for the New Year revelries.
Some 30 grams of cocaine, 200 ecstasy tablets, four bottles of liquid ecstasy and P100,000 in marked money were seized from the suspects.
Live-in partner
Eleazar said that based on their investigation, Recio was the live-in partner of Raul Antonio Cisneros, who was arrested in September 2016 after a series of drug busts pointing to him as the main source.
The Southern Police District said Cisneros, an American national and former intelligence officer of the US Air Force, was one of the major suppliers of party drugs in high-end bars in Makati and Taguig.
He was arrested in his condominium in Taguig City with around P2-million worth of ecstasy pills, including those shaped like Hello Kitty.
Follow-up operations
Cisneros, who arrived in Manila in April 2016, pointed to a fellow American based in Miami, Florida, as his source.
Eleazar said follow-up operations would be conducted to trace the group’s main supplier.
Cases for violation of Republic Act 9165 or the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002 are being prepared against the suspects.
They will be temporarily detained at the QCPD’s headquarters in Camp Karingal.