P3.4 million worth of shabu seized from Malaysian, Filipino cohort

April 9, 2026 | 5:23pm

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — Agents of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency seized P3.4 million worth of shabu from two dealers, one of them a Malaysian, entrapped on Wednesday morning, April 8, in the island town of Sitangkai in Tawi-Tawi.

Local executives and traditional Sama and Tausug community leaders separately told reporters on Thursday that the suspects, the Malaysian national Mohammad Bin Sabdani and his local female accomplice, Nashra Alih, are now both in the custody of the PDEA-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, to be prosecuted for violation of the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002.

Local officials and members of the multi-sector Tawi-Tawi Provincial Peace and Order Council said six of their companions, three of them also Malaysians, had escaped when they sensed that they were dealing with non-uniformed PDEA-BARMM agents and policemen then.

Edgar Jubay, regional director of the PDEA-BARMM, said on Thursday that the two suspects were immediately arrested and detained by their agents in Tawi-Tawi, led by Abraham Kalim, after selling to them their illegal merchandise during a tradeoff in Barangay Suwang in Sitangkai.

Local executives and provincial police officials have confirmed that Sabdani is from Kampong in the Pangkalan Kunak area in Sabah, Malaysia, not too distant from Sitangkai.

Local executives had told reporters that Alih is a resident of Pukol, a seaside area in Sitangkai, one of the 11 towns in Tawi-Tawi, the remotest province in BARMM.

Jubay said the entrapment operation that led to the arrest of the two suspects was premised on reports by local executives and Muslim religious leaders in Sitangkai and nearby island towns about their shabu trafficking activities in Tawi-Tawi.

Jubay said the entrapment operation, which resulted in the confiscation from the two suspects of half kilo of shabu, costing P3.4 million, was laid with the help of the Sitangkai Municipal Police Station, the Tawi-Tawi Provincial Police Office and other units in the province of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region.

Jubay said PDEA-BARMM agents and policemen had also confiscated from Sabdani and Alih a 9 millimeter pistol and a vintage .30 caliber M1 Garand rifle.

Jubay said local executives and officials of different units of PRO-BAR in Tawi-Tawi, under BARMM’s police director, Brig. Gen. Jaysen De Guzman, had promised to help prosecute Sabdani and  Alih in court using the shabu seized from them as evidence.

Jubay said the two suspects shall also be charged with illegal possession of firearms.