Police seize weapons, cash from Teves sibling’s property

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Police seize weapons, cash from Teves sibling’s property

INVENTORY. Part of the firearms, ammunition and cash. seized from a business venture compound in Sta. Catalina town, Negros Occidental on Friday, March 24, The property is registered in the name of Pryde Henry Teves.

Radio Pilipinas

The CIDG says the raid is part of its general campaign against loose firearms and not directly linked to the March 4 Pamplona attack that killed then Negros Oriental governor Roel Degamo and eight others

DUMAGUETE, Negros Oriental – Police and military forces on Friday morning, March 24 seized firearms and ammunition during a morning raid on an agribusiness compound registered to Henry Pryde Teves, the brother of Negros Oriental 2nd District Representative Arnie Teves.

CIDG legal officer Col. Thomas Valmonte said the raid was covered by a warrant issued on Thursday, March 23 by Judge Allan Francisco Graciano of the Regional Trial Court (RTC) in Mandaue City.

The warrant, for the alleged illegal possession of firearms, specified HDJ Bayawan Agriventures Corporation, HDJ Tolong, and HDF Tolong Compound, located at Barangay Caranoche, Sta. Catalina.

The property is registered to Henry Pryde, who had tried but failed to unseat slain governor Roel Degamo in the May 2022 gubernatorial race.

Valmonte did not directly link the raid to the March 4  Pamplona attack that killed Degamo and eight others.

The raid, he said, is part of the CIDGs Operation Paglalansag, a campaign against the proliferation of illegal firearms.

Seizure

“There was an informant who told us there are firearms here,” Valmonte told GMA Integrated News in an interview outside the raid site.

He said law enforcers found at least ten firearms and various ammunition.

Valmonte said they also “intercepted” three men with firearms.

One of them, he said, immediately surrendered his weapon on seeing the cops, who came with the Army’s 11th Infantry Battalion and the police’s elite Special Action Force (SAF).

Later reports from the media said “millions of pesos” in cash was also recovered from the compound.

A source at the police regional command in Cebu told Rappler the agribusiness venture was in operation, but said he was not authorized to provide other details.

Valmonte said a sugar mill inside the sprawling compound was running during the raid.

Law enforcers did not disrupt the operation and instead focused on other buildings.

“Ginamit ng nga inutusan,” Valmonte said of some buildings in the compound, without directly stating it was used as a base for the killers of Degamo.

He said the police would dig around the perimeters of the compound as the tipster said some weapons had been buried in the area.

There was no response to queries from the Negros Oriental provincial police office or the Central Visayas regional police office, although officials were in the province for the turnover of the provincial police office command.

On March 4, hours after the attack, police captured three suspects with a trove of firearms in Bayawan City. They would later find more weapons during raids on the homes of the congressman.

The local Commission on Elections had proclaimed Teves the winner of the contest. But Degamo, citing the fielding of a nuisance candidate, won a fight that went all the way to the Supreme Court. – Inday Espina-Varona/Rappler.com

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