Government agents killed two suspected drug dealers and seized P1.58 billion worth of shabu during simultaneous anti-narcotics operations Thursday night in Imus and Bacoor in Cavite.
A composite team from the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA), Philippine National Police (PNP), and Customs Intelligence and Investigation Service (CIIS) conducted the operations in line with the government’s continuing crackdown on drug dealing in the country.
The team confiscated 182 kilos of shabu valued at P1.2 billion during the buy-bust operation that resulted in the shooting encounter along Block 6 Lot 15 in Springville Executive 1 in Molino, Bacoor around 9:30 p.m.
Killed were Basher Bangon, 59, of Cagayan de Oro, and Danilo Untavar, 51, of Datu Ismael, Dasmarinas City.
Bangon, the target of the operation, is a known top-level drug personality with links to the Chinese drug syndicate, and operating in the Visayas and Mindanao areas.
PDEA director general Wilkins Villanueva said the suspects are called “bodegeros” of the Chinese drug trafficking organization.
“These dangerous drugs are supposedly supplies for Mindanao. So, all of these are en route to Mindanao. That’s how we intercepted it and we conducted an operation and we’re able to stop the impending delivery of the dangerous drugs to the southern Philippines,” he said.
“What we got here is their stockroom while the buy-bust in the other is supposedly a part of that is they will deliver to southern Philippines which is in Mindanao.”
PDEA Southern Tagalog director Juvenal Azurin said the Bacoor site was used as a stockroom for the Golden Triangle Syndicate.
Aside from the prohibited substance, authorities also recovered P600,000 cash, two identification cards, and two short firearms from the slain suspects.
The police operation in Bacoor came a few minutes after the arrest of two other drug suspects – Lani Micoleta, 45, and Aldwin Micoleta, 47 – and the capture of 48 kilos of shabu worth P331 million in Barangay Magdalo, Bahayang Pag-Asa in Imus.
The suspects, who are known associates of Basher Bangon, are operating in the National Capital Region and Southern Tagalog.
Apart from shabu, a mobile phone, two identification cards, two savings bank account passbooks, a wallet, and marked money, were also recovered from the suspects.
These two operations came a day after the PNP, PDEA and Customs Intelligence Group made the “biggest drug haul” of the year when they seized P3.94 billion worth of shabu in Zambales.
That operation also led to an armed encounter that killed four Chinese nationals and arrested three other persons.