Ramos buy-bust nets 19-year-old suspect, yields P13.6M shabu

A police officer inventories the suspected shabu confiscated from Rico Rubi (center) of Barangay Labangon, Cebu City during a drug operation on Friday, July 19. Police Colonel Gemma Vinluan, Cebu City Police Office chief, (right) also inspected the P13.6 million police drug haul. | Benjie Talisic

CEBU CITY, Philippines — A 19-year-old man was caught nearly P13.6 million worth of suspected shabu during a buy-bust operation in Barangay Cogon Ramos in Cebu City on Friday evening, July 19.

Rico Rubi was arrested after an undercover police officer bought a kilo of suspected shabu from the suspect, said Police Lieutenant Colonel Glenn Mayam, Police Drug Enforcement Group Visayas (PDEG Visayas) chief.

Mayam told CDN Digital that they had been closely monitoring the illegal activities of Rubi of A. Lopez Street in Barangay Labangon, Cebu City for two months before they conducted the operation on Friday.

Mayam, who headed the joint police and Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency in Central Visayas operation, said that after they arrested Rubi and confiscated the kilo of suspected shabu that he sold to an undercover police officer, they also found another kilo of suspected shabu in his possession.

Mayam said that two kilos of suspected shabu had an estimated Dangerous Drugs Board value of P13.6 million.

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This was the biggest drug haul of the Cebu City Police Office since Police Colonel Gemma Vinluan assumed as CCPO director on July 11.

Read more: Police seize P8M worth of illegal drugs but high-value target escapes

It was also the second multimillion peso drug haul in two days time. The first one was the arrest of Julie Ann Longgakit, who was caught with 1.3 kilos of suspected shabu with a DDB value of P8 million last July 15.

Read more: CCPO chief’s goal: Confiscate half a billion peso worth of shabu in six months

Vinluan, who inspected the confiscated shabu, said that she was shocked at the volume of drugs confiscated.

She was referring to the 2 kilos of suspected shabu taken from Rubi during Friday’s operation and the 1.3 kilos of suspected shabu  confiscated from Longgakit in a previous operation.

Vinluan said that with the volume of drugs confiscated, she believed that there could be a possible shabu laboratory in Central Visayas.

With that, she said she would implement “Operation Galugad” in the next few days in the jurisdiction of the CCPO.

She, however, did not elaborate on this operation./dbs