The Crystal Cave shabu connection

BEHIND THE SCENES

Alfred P. Dizon

BAGUIO CITY – The vicinity of Crystal Cave in this tourist resort is now emerging as center of illegal shabu trade here basing from police and Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency reports.

Recently, the “topmost regional priority target” of PDEA-Cordillera, top in target list of drug personalities in Baguio, was arrested with his wife, second in list, during simultaneous raids to serve search warrants in two houses maintained by the couple and their cohorts as drug dens.

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A PDEA report said six persons, including four juveniles, were cornered during the synchronized raid at about 5 a.m., Feb.12, at Crystal Cave, Bakakeng Central, led by PDEA Cordillera regional director Ronald Allan DG Ricardo. Twenty sachets of shabu, and paraphernalia for using the dangerous drug, and a gun with bullets were confiscated.

Alleged drug den owners Yunos Darang, 39, driver, and wife, Hanipah Darang, 36, vendor, both natives of Marawi City, Lanao Del Sur, and occupants of the lower floor of an apartment located at 120 Crystal Cave, were apprehended with 12 sachets of shabu and drug paraphernalia which included   plastic sachet with shabu residue,  digital weighing scale, glass tooter, aluminum tooter, burners,  aluminum foil plastic sachets for repacking shabu, aluminum foil strips among others.

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Meanwhile, four sachets of shabu, plastic sachet with shabu residue, an aluminum foil and suspected drug money were seized during implementation of search warrants upper floor of No. 120, Crystal Cave. However, respondents of the search warrant, who were allegedly maintaining the drug den, were not around during the raid.
An adjacent house was also raided that resulted in the arrest of BashimAzis y Datumoluk, 21, native of MSU Cabangin, Marawi City, Lanao Del Sur; and JidatAzis y Benito, 18, cell phone vendor and resident of Bangon, Marawi City.

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Also confiscated were six sachets of shabu, a Cal. 22 Colt Magnum revolver with six bullets, and drug paraphernalia.

Minors “Tyler”, 11; “Iñigo”, 12;  “Nadine”, 13 and “Marvin”, 14, were rescued by from the drug den, operated by another cohort of the Darang couple, who was also not around during the raid.

The minors were turned over to the Baguio City Social Welfare and Development Office, while cases for violation of Republic Act 9208 were referred to the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group Cordillera for filing against the Darang couple and their four cohorts.

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The seized shabu in the crackdown was 11.60 grams valued at P89,320. The Darang couple, their four cohorts at large, BashimAzis and JidatAzis will be charged in court for violation of Republic Act 9165 (Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002).

Additional criminal cases for violation of Presidential Decree 1866 as amended by RA 8294 and RA 9516 (illegal possession of firearm and ammunitions) will be filed against the Azis couple.

According to the PDEA, using minors as runners, couriers and messengers, or in any other capacity directly connected to dangerous drugs and chemicals trade is an aggravating circumstance for drug law violators as imposed by RA 9165.

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The raid, dubbed Operation Crystal Clear, was carried out by PDEA, police regional office and CIDG agents. The report said the notorious and elusive YunosSabuyogan Darang was leader of the dreaded Darang local drug group, then a big-time supplier of shabu in Baguio City and La Trinidad, Benguet.

The Darang drug group was deemed disbanded on June 22, 2009 upon arrest of Yunos Darang in a sting operation by PDEA at Marcos Highway. He was nabbed with one of his members during the entrapment, but their cases were dismissed on April 5, 2010. Yunos had reportedly also been involved in two separate shooting incidents in Baguio City.

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The recent raid was the second warranted search carried out by drug law enforcement agents and policemen at Yunos’ turf. On May 28, 2009, a search warrant was implemented at the residence of the Darang couple, where both evaded arrest, but one of Yunos’s younger sisters and her husband, both members of the drug group and natives of Mindanao were collared.

In addition, shabu, drug paraphernalia and chemicals, an unlicensed firearm and other deadly weapons, monitoring gadgets, and drug money bank accounts were confiscated.

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Yunos and Hanipah Darang had reportedly been  apprehended by PDEA agents  in 2005 in Baguio with a big volume of shabu valued at about half a million pesos, but the case was dismissed at the prosecution level.

                Investigation then disclosed that the raided Darang residence, a so-called “shabu trading post,” was also used for pot sessions at times by non-members of the group who went there to buy shabu for personal consumption.

Hanipah, then co-leader of the drug group, had also been charged for illegal possession of firearm relative to the gun confiscated at their residence during implementation of search warrant in 2009.

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Meanwhile, sources said if some truck drivers along the Halsema Highway are reckless, these could be high on shabu. They could be either coming from Buguias or Mankayan towns in Benguet where shabu reportedly proliferates.

According to sources, “brothers from way down south” migrated to Buguias particularly in the Abatan area to cash in on the lucrative shabu trade. These reportedly have connections to the Crystal Cave group.