2 alleged big-time drug traffickers yield P1.5 million ‘shabu’, gun in Lucena buy-bust

INQUIRER.net stock photo

LUCENA CITY — Anti-illegal drugs operatives arrested two suspected big-time traffickers in a buy-bust operation here Monday and seized over P1.5 million worth of “shabu” (crystal meth) and an illegal firearm.

The drug suspects were identified as Suzette Parto, 29, and Alvin Abellera, 28, both residents of the city, Lt. Colonel Reynaldo Reyes, Lucena police chief, said in a report.

Members of the police drug enforcement unit collared the suspects around 3 p.m. after they allegedly sold crystal meth to an undercover police officer acting as a drug user in Barangay 5.

Seized from the suspects were 18 sachets of shabu weighing 76.69 gram with estimated Dangerous Drugs Board value of P529,161 and worth P1,564,476 in the street market.

The police tagged Parto as included on the drug watch list as an “HVI” or high-value individual in the local drug scene.

Also recovered from Abellera was an undocumented .9mm-caliber Glock 17 loaded with two bullets.

“The gun was reportedly stolen from an Army soldier based on a police record,” Reyes said in an online interview.

Police were tracking the source of the illegal drugs.

Both suspects are under police custody and face charges of violating the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002.

Abellera will also be slapped with another case for illegal possession of a firearm.

RELATED STORY

P161,000 ‘shabu’ seized from 5 drug suspects in Cavite, Lucena City