PO2 Ramon Sosobrado examines a pack of suspected shabu and other items seized from Genes Ermitanio (right). (CDN PHOTO/LITO TECSON)
Genes Ermitanio is turning 20 years old today but he’ll be celebrating his birthday behind bars after his arrest in a drug buy-bust operation in Cebu City past midnight.
Police said Ermitanio, a resident of barangay Guadalupe, tried to sell a kilo of suspected shabu to an undercover police operative.
The drugs have a potential value of P11.8 million pending laboratory analysis of its quality.
Ermitanio was arrested by operatives of the City Intelligence Branch (CIB).
Ermitanio was previously jailed on robbery charges and was released early this year.
Supt. Romeo Santander, CIB chief, said Ermitanio was under surveillance for two months before his arrest.
“We had a hard time materializing the transaction because he kept changing the places where he would meet the buyer,” said Santander.
Ermitanio finally agreed to meet the buyer at the corner of Tres De Abril and Salvador streets in barangay Labangon.
A decoy handed him P400,000 in marked money.
Ermitanio quickly noticed the bundle of money was fake and tried to run away but CIB operatives cornered him.
Ermitanio said two persons had asked him to deliver the drugs.
He said he was hired as a drug courier while he was detained in the Cebu City Jail.