Cordi’s top drug cartel big boss falls in Baguio

July 18, 2020 Metro BLISTT

A notorious drug cartel big boss fell in a raid at his hideout atop a hill at San Carlos Heights, Irisan Tuesday night. Federico “Eric” Oliveros, 38, who took over leadership of his father’s “Oliveros drug cartel” operating in Baguio City, the highland region and neighboring provinces, gave up without a fight when Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency-Baguio operatives aided by National Bureau of Investigation-Cordillera agents, Cordillera police intelligence operatives and Baguio policemen as the Tuesday dusk fell surprised him inside his home and seized at least P400,000 worth of shabu, liquid shabu, several drug paraphernalia, a 25 caliber pistol and bullets from his bedroom.
“I feared he would pick up his firearm when we came in,” gasped a PDEA agent, who vowed he was ready to pull the trigger of his Gahlil rifle aimed at Oliveros, who accordingly had been a village thug at San Carlos Heights.
Oliveros, PDEA-Baguio chief IA5 Michael Mercader said, is the son of Baguio’s infamous drug kingpin “Bernardo ‘Benjie’ Oliveros, who got a life time jail term and was fined P10 million for selling drugs seven years ago.
The older Oliveros, said to be in the drug trade for decades and was only collared by anti-narcotics operatives on September 2011, was convicted for 12-20 years jail term in 2013 by Judge Antonio Reyes of the Baguio City drugs court.
From his humble beginning as a ‘stowaway,’ the older Oliveros became Baguio City’s most powerful drug personality for a very long time, newly appointed PDEA-Cordillera director Gil Castro said. The PDEA official was then the drug agency’s assistant regional director who pounced on the older Oliveros in 2011. Castro said the older Oliveros had already been a key player in the shabu trade in Baguio City by the late 1990’s.
The younger Oliveros was first caught on November 10, 2007 by Baguio policemen with 9.09 grams of shabu at Maria Basa, Pacdal. His cases were however dismissed on January 6, 2009.
Ace Alegre/ABN