Policemen confiscated P3.4 million worth of shabu from a 38-year-old mother and her adolescent daughter who fell in a sting in Barangay Poblacion 5 in Cotabato City on Friday, August 8, 2025.

Farida Bai Montar was immediately locked in a police detention while her 16-year-old daughter is now under the joint custody of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region (PRO-BAR) and the social welfare office of the Cotabato City local government.

Police Brig. Gen. Jaysen Carpio De Guzman, director of PRO-BAR, told reporters on Sunday morning, August 10, that the successful entrapment operation was premised on reports by traditional Moro leaders and local officials, among them Mayor Bruce Matabalao about Montar’s large-scale peddling of shabu and marijuana in Cotabato City and in nearby towns in Maguindanao del Norte.

De Guzman said the operation that resulted in the arrest of Montar and her daughter was together carried out by the Drug Enforcement Group-Special Operations Unit 15, which is under PRO-BAR’s operational control, and personnel of different units of the Cotabato City Police Office led by their director, Col. Jibin Bongcayao.

Montar and her daughter, a high school student, were detained after selling to non-uniformed policemen some 500 grams of shabu, costing P3.4 million, during an entrapment operation at one area in Barangay Poblacion 5 in Cotabato City.

Photo shows the P3.4 million worth of shabu seized from Montar and her daughter, to be used as evidence in prosecuting them for violation of the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002. (August 10, 2025, Cotabato City, Bangsamoro Region)