4 nabbed in illegal drug ‘trading post’ dawn raid

BAGUIO CITY -- Four close relatives of a couple who allegedly leads a notorious local drug group were arrested here dawn of May 28 in the couple’s residence at a Muslim neighborhood.

Nabbed from the suspects were sachets of shabu, drug paraphernalia and chemicals, an unlicensed firearm and other deadly weapons, monitoring gadgets, and proofs of suspected drug money bank accounts during implementation of a search warrant

Nabbed were Alekan Madid y Datumanong alias “Aliekan Madid y Hadji” or “Alvin,” 24 of Maging, Lanao Del Sur and his wife, Snauray Madid y Darang alias “Snauriay Sabuyugan y Madid”, 27, of Narra, Palawan; and Patima Darang y Sabuyugan, 17, also of Narra, Palawan and a 15-year old from Narra, Palawan.

The suspects all claimed to be residents of No. 120 Pinewood Village, Crystal Cave here., the subject house in with the search warrant.

Snauray, Patima and the minor were identified as sisters of Unos Darang y Sabuyugan, alleged leader of the Darang drug group.

His wife, Hanipa Darang y Abdulla allegedly co-leads the group. The couple was nowhere during the execution of the search warrant at their house.

The Madid spouses, in the list of drug Personalities in the Cordillera identified members of the Darang Group, had been earlier arrested, on March 8, 2005, with cohorts, Delfin Lomibao y Cortez, Oliver Buado y Constantino and Joel Buado y Constantino in a buy-bust operation at Bukaneg St. here where a big volume of shabu, weighing a total of 45.2 grams , valued at about half a million pesos in the streets was confiscated from them.

The cases against them were dismissed at the prosecution level on April 29, 2005. The anti-drug operation was carried out by policemen who were then detailed with the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency in the region.

Meanwhile, seized during the warranted search of the so-called “shabu trading post” at 4 a,m, May 28 were four sachets weighing a total of 2.13 grams and having street price of P25,000.00; drug paraphernalia and chemicals; a Cal. 45 pistol with magazine four bullets, a samurai sword, hunting knife; laptop, CCTV camera, motion detector, television set and video cassettes; and various bank books, Automated Teller Machine cards and credit cards, blank checks with a checking account located in Dasmariñas, Cavite, duplicates of deposit slips to a bank account also in Dasmariñas, Cavite, and computation if proceeds derived from illegal trafficking of dangerous drugs.

The drug law enforcement operation was done by combined units from PDEA – CAR, from the Special Operations Unit of the Regional Anti-Illegal Drugs Special Operations Task Group of the Police Regional Office – Cordillera, and from the Special Weapons and Assault Tactics Team of the Baguio City Police Office.

The search warrant was issued by Executive Judge Marybelle Demot Mariñas of Branch 8, Regional Trial Court, 1st Judicial Region, La Trinidad, Benguet on May 22.

Cases for illegal drugs were filed against the suspects while the minor was turned over to the Baguio City Social Welfare and Development Office / Silungan Center for counseling.

PDEA officials said the Darang Group gets its supply of shabu from Cavite , Dagupan City and Urdaneta City in Pangasinan, Culiat in Quezon City and Quiapo and Taguig City in Metro Manila and distributes shabu in Baguio City , La Trinidad and other nearby towns of Benguet.

Investigations disclosed the “shabu trading post” even allows pot sessions by non-members of the group who go there to buy shabu for personal consumption.

Drug enforcement said the drug leader couple might had escaped with bigger volumes of the drug and with the missing video recorder since it took some time for the operatives to be able to penetrate the house because of its well-secured entries aside from monitoring devices.

Madid’s wife was reportedly rushed by the law enforcers to the hospital for the immediate treatment of the injury she incurred from trying to evade arrest from the roof of the house.