UNDERCOVER Bulacan policemen on Tuesday shot dead a notorious drug trafficker in the province and arrested 17 others in the wake of their stepped-up anti-criminality campaign, a report to Police Regional Office 3 director, Brigadier General Rhodel O. Sermonia said yesterday.
Bulacan Police Provincial Office director, Colonel Lawrence B. Cajipe identified the slain suspect as Tirso Hernandez, a resident of Barangay Pantubig in San Rafael municipality.
The official said the suspect exchanged fire with an undercover officer from the San Rafael Municipal Police Station Drug Enforcement Unit and was killed in the process.
Local policemen under Lieutenant Col. Laurente Acquiot recovered a caliber .38 revolver with two spent cartridges and two live ammunition and 11 heat-sealed-plastic sachets containing shabu and the marked money from the suspect.
Cajipe said 12 other known drug personalities in the province were also arrested by his men in a string of buy-bust operations in Bocaue and Pandi municipalities and in Malolos and San Jose del Monte cities.
Recovered from the suspects were 30 plastic sachets containing the so-called ‘poor man’s cocaine’ and the buy-bust money. All are now facing charges for sale and possession of dangerous drugs under Republic Act 9165 or the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002.
Cajipe also reported the arrest of five other men wanted for theft, estafa and violation of the Social Security Act of 1997 during separate manhunt operations in the municipalities of Paombong, Bocaue, San Miguel, San Rafael and San Ildefonso in the wake of their all-out effort to account for most wanted persons in the province.
