SWAT member, girlfriend busted in Quezon drug sting
A member of the elite Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) police team and his girlfriend were arrested in a buy-bust operation in Pagbilao, Quezon, Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Dir. Gen. Oscar D. Albayalde said on Monday.
Albayalde said joint operatives of the Pagbilao Municipal Police and Lucena City Police collared Police Officer 1 Hezri Jarder, assigned at the Lucena City Police Station, and his live-in partner, Mary Lee Miralles, for selling suspected methamphetamine hydrochloride (shabu) to undercover operatives at 2:51 p.m. on Sunday.
Police chief said Miralles sold the illegal drugs to a poseur-buyer onboard a sedan in front of their store along Pornobi St. at Barangay Catalina in Pagbilao.
Miralles and the undercover agent exchanged two P500 bills as marked money, and three heat-sealed sachet of suspected shabu, which Jarder handed over to his girlfriend through the store’s window.
Operatives immediately arrested Miralles, and held her inside the police vehicle.
However, upon seeing his girlfriend’s arrest, Jarder took a rifle and shot the operatives onboard the car several times, hitting Miralles in her right fist.
Policemen retaliated, and eventually arrested Jarder.
Albayalde said four suspects arrested in an earlier police operation in Lucena had revealed Miralles was one of the distributors of illegal drugs in the area.
The couple were placed under the custody of the Pagbilao Municipal Police Station, and would be facing charges in violation of the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002. /kga
