Police arrest fugitive Jaguar drug courier

Alan Tabalin, an alleged drug courier of slain drug lord Jeffrey “Jaguar” Diaz, is now detained at the stockade of the Mambaling Police Station after he was arrested by police in an operation in the City of Naga, south Cebu on Sunday. (CDN PHOTO/ADOR VINCENT MAYOL).

They’re falling one after the other.

Four days after the Philippine National Police (PNP) cornered his alleged bodyguard, driver and courier, another cohort of slain drug lord Jeffrey “Jaguar” Diaz fell in the hands of police on Sunday.
Following months of trying to track him down, police operatives finally caught up with 51-year-old Alan Tabalin in an operation in Barangay Langtad, City of Naga, southern Cebu.

Tabalin was arrested on the strength of a warrant issued by Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 57 Judge James Stewart Himalaloan last April 2016 for violation of RA 9165 or the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002.

Senior Insp. Eduard Sanchez, chief of the Mambaling Police Station, said different law enforcement units had looked for Tabalin, whom they described as “very elusive.”

“He (Tabalin) kept on transferring from one place to another. But we finally caught him. He could hardly escape due to the number of operatives who took part in the operation,” Sanchez told reporters.
Aside from the Mambaling police, operatives of the Provincial Intelligence Branch and the Naga City Police joined the operation that led to Tabalin’s arrest.

The suspect is said to have been high up in Jaguar’s drug network, serving as the slain drug lord’s courier and trader.

Tabalin’s arrest came four days after the Cebu City Intelligence Branch and the Cebu City Anti-Illegal Drugs Special Operations Team arrested Joselito “Otik” Arellano, Jaguar’s alleged bodyguard, driver and right-hand man.

Arellano was arrested by the police soon after he left his mother’s house in Barangay Basak San Nicolas, Cebu City.

Tabalin, on the other hand, was in a house in the City of Naga when police arrested him.

In an interview at the stockade of the Mambaling Police Station, Tabalin, a native of Mambaling and a neighbor of Arellano, said he went into hiding upon learning that an arrest warrant had been issued against him.

He said he also feared for his life when President Rodrigo Duterte assumed his post at noon of June 30.

“Nakuyawan ko nga patyon ko. (I was afraid I might get killed),” he said.

Tabalin admitted that he used to work as a drug courier when Jaguar was still alive but left the group when the drug lord was killed in a police operation in Las Piñas City last June 17.
Tabalin refused to elaborate.

Senior Insp. Sanchez said a certain Sophia Tabalin, a cousin of the arrested suspect, who was earlier on their drug watch list, also surrendered during Oplan Tokhang.

Tokhang is the government’s antidrug campaign which brings policemen knocking on the doors of drug suspects to personally encourage them to surrender to authorities.