BAGUIO CITY November 11 – A young member of a notorious drug group operating in Baguio and its environs was arrested by combined police operatives and anti-narcotics agents during a drug buy bust operation at Lourdes Subdivision here Tuesday night.
Juvenal Azurin, regional director of the Cordillera office of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA-CAR), identified the arrested drug trader during the buy-bust operation as Hilario Viduya Pineda alias Shane/Jun-Jun, 20, single, and a resident of Padre Burgos, Baguio City.
The PDEA-CAR official disclosed Pineda, a member of a local drug group operating within Baguio and La Trinidad, Benguet was arrested when he sold a sachet containing a substance suspected to be shabu with a street value of P 3,500.00 to a PDEA agent who acted as a poseur-buyer.
The suspect is temporarily detained at the PDEA-CAR detention facility and will be facing cases for violation of Republic Act No. 9165 otherwise known as the “Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002.”
Azurin expressed that Pineda’s arrest brought to five the number of collared drug group members through buy-bust operations by agents of PDEA-CAR in less than a month.
“The relentless campaign by PDEA-CAR will continue until these local drug groups be neutralized,” Azurin stressed.
