73 kg of cannabis found in abandoned van in La Union
PDEA agents and La Union police opened a Mitsubishi Delica van abandoned at Sasaba, Santol on 13 January 2025 and found 73 rolls of dried cannabis leaves weighing 73 kg, worth P8.76 million. Two suspects who had fled a checkpoint days earlier remain at large and face charges under the anti-drugs law.
🇵🇭 Barangay Sasaba, Santol, La Union · Philippines
On the morning of Monday 13 January 2025, Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency
officers and La Union police opened a Mitsubishi Delica van abandoned by the
roadside in Barangay Sasaba, Santol, and found 73 rolls of dried cannabis
leaves, each wrapped in transparent plastic and tape, weighing 73 kilograms.[1][2]At the Dangerous Drugs Board standard price of P120,000 per kilogram,
the haul was valued at P8.76 million.[1][2]
PDEA Region 1 director Joel Plaza named the suspects as two Sasaba residents
who had fled a checkpoint the previous Friday when they noticed the
authorities.[1][2]Operatives kept the abandoned van under surveillance for
several days before securing a search warrant to open it on Monday.[1][2]Plaza said the two would be charged under the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs
Act.[1][2]
Case data
Every number and detail the sources state, with the sources that state it.
The two named suspects had not been caught when these reports were published.
Whether the van's registered owner faces charges was not reported.
No weight beyond the 73 kg total, and no other contents of the van, were reported.
The same article reports a separate same-day Cordillera eradication and a Rosario shabu sting, different events left out here.
Both published accounts draw on the PDEA-Region 1 briefing, and the Philstar page illustrates the story with a 2024 file photo that is not listed as media.
Police arrested 27 drug suspects in 19 operations across the CALABARZON region of the Philippines in the 24 hours from 6 a.m. on 8 November to 6 a.m. on 9 November 2026, seizing 1.54 grams of marijuana alongside about 65.56 grams of shabu. In the same anti-criminality campaign officers arrested 153 wanted persons, including 45 most wanted, and 311 people in illegal gambling operations.
Police and an airport inter-agency group found about 1.56 kg of high-grade marijuana, valued at ₱1.563 million, among 12 abandoned inbound parcels at the Pasay City mail centre on 6 November 2026. The same parcels carried far more shabu and ketamine, and no one was arrested over them.
Police arrested 46 people in 34 anti-drug operations across the CALABARZON region of the Philippines in the 24 hours to 6 a.m. on 5 November 2026. The regional police report put the cannabis seized at 10.18 grams of marijuana and 2.01 grams of kush, part of a 252,164.60-peso haul valued together with 36.46 grams of shabu.
Arrested 46Plants destroyed 0Area 0 haCannabis 12.19 g
Anti-narcotics agents seized about 4.27 kg of suspected marijuana, valued by PDEA at P512,880, from a parcel at a delivery hub in Labangan, Zamboanga del Sur on 31 October 2026. No arrests were made; the sender and receiver are still being identified and the drugs are in PDEA custody for laboratory examination.
