CEBU CITY – Police seized more than P50-million worth of suspected shabu in two separate buy-bust operations here Thursday.
Some 3,005 grams of shabu worth P20.4 million were seized from 35-year-old Elmer Bas Gallarde, who was arrested in a buy-bust operation in Barangay Apas around 5:45 p.m.
Police said that as a “bodegero” (warehouse man), Gallarde was tasked by an illegal drugs group to keep huge amounts of illegal drugs that came from their supplier in Manila.
After the arrest in Apas, operatives of the Cebu City police Drug Enforcement Unit headed by Police Major Jonathan Taneo conducted a follow-up operation that resulted to the confiscation of at least five kilos of suspected shabu from a 37-year-old man in Consolacion, Cebu.
Kirby Abanilla yielded packs of shabu worth P34 million when he was arrested in Barangay Poblacion at 9:40 p.m.
A .38 caliber revolver was also seized from Abanilla.
Police considered Abanilla and Gallarde as high-value individuals on the regional level.
Police Col. Engelbert Soriano, chief of the CCPO, said the arrests were the result of the police’s intensified surveillance on illegal drug personalities operating in the city.
Soriano has instructed station police chiefs to closely monitor drug personalities as the illegal drugs trade continued to thrive in the city despite the massive anti-illegal drug campaign. (Calvin D. Cordova)
