P5.1M MJ On 20 Plantations Goes Up In Smoke

December 12, 2020 JUST IN

Hinterland Source Of Three Captured MJ Traders Zeroed In “P5.1M MJ On 20 Plantations Goes Up In Smoke”

BAGUIO CITY (December 12, 2020) – Authorities zeroed in at the source of the three young marijuana traders captured Sunday night along lower Magsaysay Avenue here with 7 kilos of marijuana in tubes worth P840,0000.00.

Starting Thursday till Friday, combined PDEA Cordillera, Regions I, II and IVB agents joined in by Cordillera policemen and NBI-Cordillera agents raided at least 20 plantations (total of 4,250 square meters) in sitios Dalipey and Batangan in barangay Tacadang, Kibungan, Benguet and torched at least 25,000 fully-grown marijuana plants reaching P5.1M in market value.

The raid on these plantations were an offshoot of last Sunday night’s capture of

three young MJ traders who tried but failed to sneak passed a border control area along lower Magsaysay Ave., 7 kilos of dried marijuana leaves.

Manuel Sanchez Balbuena II, 22, a native of Balagtas, Bulacan but is living at #4 Sunnyside Fairview, Tacay Road, here; Kasmir Vince del Mundo Gile, 28, from Middle Quezon Hill and Keihl Gio Paraan Baniqued, 22, living at #52 Lower QM, also here, were tipped off of their smuggling try prompting an interdiction operation that ended at the border control point along lower Magsaysay Ave., said Baguio City police director Col. Allen Rae Co.

An SMS was received that the trio aboard of a black Toyota Fortuner SUV with plate number ZHX 404 coming from La Trinidad, Benguet’s capital, were carrying the contraband enroute to Baguio City, said PDEA-Baguio City Officer Intelligence Agent 1 Reinier Tinong, who led last Sunday’s interdiction operation and the two-day MJ plantation raid in Tacadang, Kibungan, Benguet.

PDEA-Cordillera regional director Gil Castro said, “we were able to zero in at the trio’s source”, prompting the discovery of the almost two dozen plantation sites in Kibungan.

NBI-Cordillera Senior Agent I Atty. Von Francis Soriano, who joined the raid with Special Investigator III Nielbert Pisec and Intelligence Officer Bonifacio Salingbay, promised, “we will not stop working and joining our PDEA and PNP counterparts in this war on illegal drugs 24/7, most especially in the eradication of marijuana and obliteration of the illicit trade in the Cordillera region”.

Artemio A. Dumlao