6 busted, drug den shutdown in Sulu operation

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — Six individuals together operating a clandestine drug den fell in an entrapment operation by non-uniformed anti-narcotics agents in Barangay Bato-Bato in Indanan, Sulu on Friday, July 4.

The suspects, Detti Junaid Abidin, 19, Jan-Jan Navarro Sabturani, 39, Darwin Jabari Nunjari, 42, Bennadil Joe Kayanan, 52, Nurhaym Jamih Sakirin, 32, and the 35-year-old Alinja Mursid Itilis, are now detained.

Gil Cesario Castro, director of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, told reporters on Saturday, July 5, that they are to prosecute the six suspects for violation of the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002.

The suspects were immediately frisked and cuffed after selling to PDEA-BARMM agents and policemen P136,000 worth of shabu during a tradeoff in the premises of their drug den in Barangay Bato-Bato in Indanan, not too distant from Jolo, the capital town of Sulu.

Castro said the well-planned sting that led to their arrest was laid with the help of municipal and provincial officials, operatives of the Indanan Municipal Police Station and the Sulu Provincial Police Office and their superior, Brig. Gen. Jaysen De Guzman, Bangsamoro regional police director.

Combined PDEA-BARMM agents and policemen found shabu sniffing paraphernalia in the drug den of the suspects, where they held pot sessions and from where they sold shabu to buyers from barangays around.

The drug den was immediately closed down by PDEA-BARMM agents, now guarded by barangay officials and volunteer community watchmen.