TWO suspected pushers, one of them a Chinese, were killed and 36 kilos of suspected shabu worth P244.8 million were seized during an anti-narcotics operation in Paranaque City on Saturday afternoon.
The PNP Drug Enforcement Unit, which conducted the operation with the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency, identified the fatalities as Jin Long Cai and Danny Apiga.
Police said a poseur-buyer arranged to buy shabu from the suspects at around 4:30 p.m. at the vicinity of Uniwide Coastal Mall on Diosdado Macapagal Blvd. The two sensed they were dealing with authorities and opted to fight it out, leading to their death.
Aside from the shabu, also recovered at the scene were the buy-bust money, a Kia sedan and two caliber .45 pistols.
“The operatives encountered the suspects during drug-bust operation that resulted in the death of the two suspects,” the DEG said in a report.
PDEA chief Wikins Villanueva said: “The PNP and PDEA are now working as one to get rid of the source of dangerous drugs that endangers the very existence of our communities.”
Villanueva, who assumed command as PDEA chief on June 1, vowed to work closely with the PNP in the conduct of “massive operations” against the sources of drugs.
The arrest came two days after DEG and PDEA operatives arrested a Chinese drug trafficker and his two Filipino cohorts in a buy-bust operation in Marilao, Bulacan, leading to the recovery of 756 kilos of suspected shabu worth P5.14 billion.
PDEA operatives also arrested two drug peddlers for selling a kilo of suspected shabu worth P6.8 million in a buy-bust operation in Bacoor City in Cavite before noon Saturday.
PDEA Calabarzon director Melvin Estoque identified the two as Jeffrey Garcia Santos, 39, of Pasay City and Alexander Maulha Said, 28, of Quezon City.
Estoque said the two were nabbed around 11:25 a.m. at a shopping mall in the city shortly after they sold illegal drugs to a poseur-buyer.
The PDEA reported Santos and Said “agreed to meet the poseur-buyer to sell shabu and received the buy-bust money.”
“Operatives were able to confiscate more or less 1000 grams (one kilo) of shabu with an estimated market value of P6.8 million,” it said.
Three men were arrested in buy-bust operations in Mandaluyong and Marikina on Saturday, with over P100,000 worth of suspected shabu seized.
Brig. Gen. Johnson Almazan, Eastern Police District director, identified the three as Pio Olovarri, 22; Niño Mahinay, 29, residents of Golden Valley, Barangay Malanday, Marikina; and Mike Dicamara, 25, of Addition Hills, Mandaluyong.
Seized from them were 18 sachets of suspected shabu. — With Noel Talacay and Christian Oineza
