ZAMBOANGA CITY: Two local Land Transportation Office (LTO) personnel and a prominent businessman were arrested last Friday afternoon in a drug buy-bust at a downtown pension house, a police report said. Law enforcers, led by Maj. Elmer Perez Solon of Central Police Station, identified the suspects as Abdul Mutin, 40, LTO operation officer assigned at the Zamboanga Ecozone area in Barangay Talisayan; LTO employee Saudie Hairul, 42; and well-known businessman Gairel Tacurian, 38, of Barangay Santa Barbara. In his report to city police chief Col. Thomas Joseph Martir, Solon said the three suspects were arrested inside the 999 Traders Inn after the police received a tip from unidentified concerned hotel workers. Confiscated from Tacurian were sachets of methamphetamine hydrochloride or shabu with an estimated street value of P1,500, and P200 marked money, and from Mutin and Hairul, drug paraphernalia. The City Drug Enforcement Unit, led by Capt. Ahmed Anuary, arrested Ameer Pula of Barangay Recodo and seized from him P1.3-million worth of suspected shabu last Saturday after he transacted with a police poseur-buyer who handed the suspect fake marked money. Martir said the arrested LTO personnel, businessman and Pula have been charged for violation of Republic Act 9165 or the “Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002.”
