CAMP Macabulos, Tarlac City -- In a string of successful buy-bust operations, the second most wanted drug dealer of the province was arrested by the joint operation of the Tarlac Provincial Police Office and the Criminal Investigation Detection Team.

Tarlac provincial police director Senior Supt. Alfred S. Corpus identified the arrested drug trader as Alvin Aquino, 48, of Bgy. San Nicolas, this city, tagged as a “notorious pusher of shabu and marijuana operating in Tarlac and Pangasinan.”

Aquino’s arrest came barely two weeks after the arrest of Alvin Manalang Cupcupin, the third most wanted in the provincial drug watch list.

In the entrapment procedure headed jointly by Chief Insp. Richard Caballero, Tarlac CIDT provincial officer, and Supt. Bayani Razalan, chief of the TPPO Investigation Branch, in Bgy. San Nicolas, this city, Aquino initially yielded .053 grams of suspected shabu. 

During the buy bust, Aquino eluded the arresting team but was arrested by a joint crack team led by Senior Insp. Marcelino Teloza, PO1 Rhene Castillo, SPO4 Wilhelmino Alcantara, PO3 Ronnel Tan and PO1 Ben Daria in his residence in Tarlac.

Aquino yielded another plastic sachet of suspected shabu weighing .173 grams and the P1,000 bill used in the buy bust.

Both Aquino and Cupcupin are known members of the Punzal Gang, an identified big-time supplier of illegal drugs in Tarlac and Pangasinan. The Punzal Group is headed by Abenardo Punzal who is still at large after posting a bail when arrested last year.

A case of violation of Sections 5 and 11 of R.A. 9165 was filed against Aquino before the Regional Trial Court here.

“Our priority is to eliminate all the illegal drug activities in our area of responsibility and we shall only rest when these organized crime groups are neutralized,“ Razalan said.

“The success of our series of operations against illegal drugs trade is a matter of being ably motivated as police officers and the cooperation extended by the people in gathering data against lawless elements. With the support being given to us by the people themselves, we expect more arrest of criminals and organized crime groups,” Caballero stressed.