TABUK CITY, Kalinga – Police seized 20,000 grams of dried marijuana leaves and stems in bricks worth P2.4 million in a checkpoint in Talaca in Barangay Agbannawag, in this city on Saturday night, July 23.

The hot items were being sent through ‘Padala System,’ which the police learned from a concerned citizen to be the modus operandi of syndicates in transporting illegal drugs.

According to Col. Peter Tagtag, Jr., provincial director of the Kalinga Provincial Police Office, the marijuana bricks in two boxes were supposed to be dropped at Bocaue Exit in Bulacan.

Tagtag said the marijuana bricks were discovered after the driver informed the police in charge of the checkpoint that two boxes containing suspected contraband were loaded in his van in Brgy. Agbannawag.

At around 6:30 p.m., personnel of 1503rd Mobile Company of the Regional Mobile Force Company-15 who were manning a checkpoint, informed Lt. Gerald Bentadan that the driver of a passenger van had voluntarily informed them that he picked two boxes which he suspected to be containing contraband.

According to the driver, while he was in Brgy. Agbannawag, two unidentified persons instructed him to proceed to New Balbalan, Lacnog East, Tabuk City, where another two unidentified persons put two boxes in his passenger vehicle.

Upon arrival at the Talaca Checkpoint in the city, the driver immediately informed the duty police officers that he suspected the two boxes contained illegal drugs.

Immediately, the police checked the two boxes and with the use of a sniffing dog, they found out that the two boxes indeed contained marijuana bricks.

The police have yet to identify the owners of the illegal drugs, while also identifying the men who loaded the box into the passenger van.

"Now they are hi-tech, (they) pay online and the contraband will be taken on public vehicles so as not to be noticed and when they pass the checkpoint, they will stamp their look-out on the buyer wherever the vehicle arrives," said Tagtag.