Plea bargainer nabbed anew

Oliveros pleaded guilty and spent several years in prison, only to lead his father’s drug cartel after his release several years ago ‘with more viciousness and was more dangerous’ than his father

BAGUIO CITY — A notorious armed drug leader who was earlier released following a plea-bargaining arrangement re-entered prison after being caught in possession of almost P400 thousand worth of suspected shabu.

Operatives of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) Cordillera raided the house of Federico Oliveros, identified as the leader of a family-named drug cartel operating in Baguio City, in San Carlos Heights, Barangay Irisan, Baguio City on Tuesday night.

Seized from the suspect were an assortment of illegal drugs, including the liquified form of methamphetamine or shabu, and firearms and ammunitions.

Aside from illegal possession of drugs, Oliveros will also be slapped with charges for illegal possession of firearms and ammunitions.

According to PDEA-Baguio chief IA5 Michael Mercader, Oliveros is the son of Baguio’s infamous drug kingpin Bernardo “Benjie” Oliveros who was sentenced to a life term and was fined P10 million for selling drugs in 2013.

The elder Oliveros, said to be in the drug trade for decades, was only collared by anti-narcotics operatives on September 2011 and was convicted in 2013 for a jail term spanning 12 to 20 years by Judge Antonio Reyes of the Baguio City drug court.

Meanwhile, the younger Oliveros was nabbed multiple times by Baguio police.

He was caught with 9.09 grams of shabu at Maria Basa, Pacdal on 10 November 2007 but his cases were dismissed on 6 January 2009.

On 11 June 2011, more than two years later, the younger Oliveros was again collared in Barangay Alfonso Tabora by PDEA agents with 0.41 grams of shabu, but was acquitted on 9 July 2012.

He had also been hunted and caught for frustrated murder and was last captured by PDEA agents again with shabu on 21 May 2013, which was only over 10 months after his latest acquittal in mid-2012.

Oliveros pleaded guilty and spent several years in prison, only to lead his father’s drug cartel after his release several years ago “with more viciousness and was more dangerous” than his father.