Massage therapist freed from jail last year is behind bars again for drugs

Talisay buy-bust: HVI nabbed, minor 'drug courier' rescued, P1M shabu seized

Police arrest a 30-year-old massage therapist, who was caught with 150 grams of suspect shabu worth P1 million during a buy-bust operation in Sitio Dawis, Barangay San Roque in Talisay City, Saturday night, March 26. | Contributed photo

CEBU CITY, Philippines — A massage therapist is back in jail a year after she was freed from serving time there for illegal drugs.

This was after Irish Neri, 30, was again caught with 150 grams of suspected shabu during a buy-bust operation on Saturday evening, March 26, in Sitio Dawis, Barangay San Roque, Talisay City.

Police Lieutenant Colonel Randy Caballes, chief of Talisay City Police Station, said that the suspected shabu confiscated from Neri had an estimated market value of P1 million.

Aside from the arrest of the suspect, Caballes also said that they rescued the suspect’s 17-year-old female cohort during the operation.

He said that the minor was still in their custody because they were still coordinating with the City Social Welfare and Development office where she would be turned over.

Caballes described the minor as allegedly being the link of the suspect to the Neri’s contact in the Cebu City jail, who would point Neri to the source of her illegal drugs.

The police station chief said that the minor according to the suspect was the daughter of her contact inside the jail. 

She also told police that she was using the minor as a “tighatud” or a drug courier.

“Kining minor mao ni iyang gigamit nga tighatud. Although daghan ni syag distributor si Irish, pero kini lang ang isa ang nakuha pa, ang na identify,” Caballes said.

(This minor she used it allegedly as her courier. Although Irish has a lot distributors. This is the only one that has been identified yet.)

He also said that Neri was allegedly “a bodegera”, a big distributor with her supplier leaving her 500 grams of shabu each delivery and that she would be the ones who would distribute these illegal items.

He said a bodegera was an individual who would take care of stocks, in her case illegal drugs, that she would distribute.

Neri has also been in the police watchlist of drug personalities and classified as a high value individual (HVI).

Caballes said that Neri could allegedly dispose from 200 grams to 300 grams of shabu in a week.

Further investigation of the police also showed that Neri had been arrested for selling illegal drugs in 2016 and had served time for nearly five years in jail.

She was released from prison last March 2021. 

And now she was back in jail with her arrest last Saturday, March 26, said Caballes.

Neri was detained at the Talisay City Police detention cell pending the filing of charges.

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