ZAMBOANGA CITY (MindaNews/29 April) – Operatives of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) yesterday arrested four suspects, including a policeman and his wife, in separate buy-bust operations in this southern port city.
PDEA Regional Director Adzhar Albani identified the arrested suspects as Police Office 3 Darwin Detuyatu, his wife Nortisa, Jayrulla Jahi, and Biron Sarabbun.
Albani said the Detuyatu couple was arrested around 2:30 p.m. Thursday in front of their residence in Sitio Aplaya, Barangay Rio Hondo.
He said Detuyatu is assigned at the Zamboanga City Police Office Station 9 located in Barangay Ayala.
The Detuyatus were arrested when they handed over a pack of white crystalline powder believed to be shabu in exchange of P3,300 to a PDEA agent who pretended to be a buyer of prohibited drugs, the official
Albani said the PDEA agents who arrested the couple recovered from the suspects four sachets of suspected shabu, P3,300 in marked money and a 9-millimeter pistol with 14 live ammunition.
He said that Jahi and Sarabbun were arrested in a buy-bust operation around 5 p.m. Thursday at the second floor of a food chain outlet along Gov. Camins Avenue.
Jahi is a resident of Barangay Arena Blanco, while Sarabbun is from Jolo, Sulu.
Albani said Jahi and Sarabbun were arrested after they handed over a sachet of suspected shabu in exchange of P100,000 to a PDEA agent who posed as a buyer.
Albani said that aside from the suspected shabu the PDEA agents recovered marked money of which only a P500 bill is genuine while the rest were clean cut bond papers.
The suspects were detained at the PDEA headquarters while the confiscated sachets of suspected shabu were forwarded to the police crime laboratory for quantitative examination, he said. (MindaNews)