LAPU-LAPU CITY, Cebu – Authorities seized a total of PHP5.5-million worth of Nubain drugs from a delivery man of a cargo forwarding company in an anti-drug operation in Sangi Road, Barangay Pajo in this city before dawn on Tuesday.
The joint operation was led by the Philippine National Police-Drug Enforcement Group (PDEG), supported by the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA)-Central Visayas, Regional Drug Enforcement Unit-Region 7, Regional Special Operations Group-7, Lapu-Lapu City Police Office (LCPO), station 2 and Regional Intelligence Unit-7.
PDEG head Lt. Col. Warren Dablo identified the suspect as Dioscoro Colo, 33, a resident of Manduyong village in Badian, a town in the southern part of Cebu.
Seized from Colo are 21,600 ampules of Ashtec’s Nalbuphine HCl (Hydrochloride) otherwise known as Nubain with standard price of PHP5,400,000 per ampule, PHP110,000 boodle money, A PHP1,000 and PHP500 bills used for the buy-bust operation.
The police conducted an on-site inventory of the evidence in the presence of Mayor Junard Chan.
Dablo said Colo’s supplier of Nubain is a couple not from Cebu and the woman is a Pakistani national.
Colo claims he is just an ordinary delivery man who was paid PHP1,000 for every delivery.
Dablo said Colo’s name surfaced after a seller of Nubain in Cebu City mentioned it to them.
Levi Ortiz, PEA-7 director, said Nalbuphine HCl (hydrochloride) is a synthetic opioid analgesic that exposes users to the risk of addiction.
“Opioids are a class of drugs found in the Opium puppy plant. It can make the user feel very relaxed and ‘high’, yet overdosage of the drugs may lead to coma, brain damage or death,” Ortiz said in a statement posted on his social media page.
He said drug users had experimented with Nubain by mixing it with shabu, calling it “milk shake”, to produce a more potent and lethal concoction administered to the body through the veins (intravenously).
The said mixture is very dangerous and could be fatal to the user, he added.
Colo is now locked up at the LCPO while waiting for formal charges to be filed against him. (PNA)
