Cab driver, cohort yield P4.4M shabu

CAB driver Ruel Paalam, 52, said he stopped driving a taxi because he earns a lot more selling illegal drugs.

He told this story to the ar-

outside his house in Sitio Tiera Cura, Barangay Tejero, Cebu City before midnight on Wednesday.

Police also nabbed Paalam’s cohort, Matteo Ochea, 30, who served as his “runner” from the same village.

Senior Insp. Joemar Pomarejos, chief of the Cebu City Police Station 3, said Paalam’s arrest came after they received reports about illegal drug activities in Sitio Tiera Cura through the campaign,

(Report it to the City Director).

He said the suspect sold a medium pack of shabu at about 11:55 p.m. to a poseur buyer for P1,000 at the doorstep of his rented room on the ground floor of a three-story house about 30 meters away from the back of the Carreta Elementary School. Most of the houses in the area are adjacent to each other on a very narrow road.

Pomarejos said that when Paalam, who has been under surveillance by police for three weeks, noticed that he was transacting with a policeman, he ran inside the house and locked the door. The lawmen destroyed the door and collared Paalam while trying to throw an orange plastic bag inside the comfort room.

Police found one medium pack and 15 large packs of shabu inside the plastic bag. Another medium pack was seized from Ochea.

The seized drugs, about 380 grams, were estimated at P4.4 million in street value. Pomarejos told

they were validating information that Paalam gets his supply of shabu from a drug suspect detained at the Cebu City Jail.