DOJ wants Peter Lim on Interpol alert

MANILA, Philippines — Three years after a Makati court issued a warrant for his arrest, suspected drug lord Peter Lim should be put on the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) red notice, Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra said yesterday.

“I think it’s about time that we request the Interpol,” Guevarra said following the statement of Interior Secretary Eduardo Año that Lim may have already left the country.

An Interpol red notice alerts the police worldwide about the whereabouts of fugitives. A red notice will be issued upon the request of the member country.

There is no record that Lim has left the Philippines, according to the Bureau of Immigration (BI).

“His last recorded foreign travel was in 2017,” Guevarra said, although he did not discount the possibility that Lim might have slipped out of the country through the backdoor.

“We cannot really be sure. The Philippines has a very extensive coastline. There are backdoors in our southern borders,” Guevarra said.

Lim’s passport expired in 2019. The BI issued a hold departure order against him in 2018.

BI spokesperson Dana Sandoval said a namesake of Lim left the country recently.

“But a thorough verification with our system and document matching showed that the fugitive businessman has no recent departure record,” Sandoval said. “If he used a fraudulent passport, our equipment would be able to detect it.”

Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Gen. Guillermo Eleazar said Lim, who has a P500,000 bounty on his head, would be arrested whether he is in the Philippines or abroad.

Eleazar said several police units are validating information that Lim had left the country.

“I have ordered the Directorate for Intelligence, Drug Enforcement Group and Criminal Investigation and Detection Group to check this. We still don’t have exact information to validate this,” Eleazar said at a press briefing.

Eleazar said once they have confirmed the information, police would coordinate with the law enforcement agency of the country where Lim fled.

Lim went into hiding after the Makati Regional Trial Court ordered his arrest in August 2018 on charges of drug trafficking.

He was included in the watchlist of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency and was allegedly one of the suppliers of drug trafficker Kerwin Espinosa.

In 2019, President Duterte advised Lim to commit suicide than surrender. Lim’s family was reportedly one of Duterte’s campaign supporters in 2016, and there are suspicions that Lim was allowed to flee. – Neil Jayson Servallos