AUTHORITIES are now hunting down Cebu-based businessman Peter Lim, who has been linked by self-confessed drug lord Kerwin Espinosa to the illegal drug trade.
Lim, said Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II, would not be arrested but “invited” for questioning as part of the government’s buildup in its drug cases.
Aguirre confirmed that the National Bureau of Investigation has already established that the businessman who earlier met with President Rodrigo Duterte in the Palace is the same person allegedly involved in drug trafficking operations in the Visayas, as Espinosa had testified before the Senate.
“The NBI has already determined in its report that Peter Lim, the businessman, is also the drug lord,” Aguirre said.
Aguirre said the NBI had already been building the case against Lim even before his name was again mentioned in the Senate committee on justice hearing Monday, when Senator Antonio Trillanes IV showed a picture of Duterte and Lim, when they attended a wedding both as principal sponsors.
“The case buildup is ongoing. The President has repeatedly said that he [Lim] should be arrested,” the Justice secretary said, adding that there was nothing wrong with the President attending the same wedding with Lim.
Aguirre said NBI agents have been tapped to locate Lim and invite him for questioning.
Earlier, Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency Director Isidro Lapeña said Lim, who went to meet Duterte last July after the President mentioned his name as among those involved in the illegal drugs trade, was indeed the same Lim on their list of drug lords.
Confusion initially greet the President’s announcement when 4, 000 people with the same name appeared in the database of the NBI, but Lapeña said the Cebuano businessman was indeed the one and the same suspected drug lord.
In the Senate hearing, Philippine National Police Director General Ronald De La Rosa denied that Duterte was protecting Lim, adding that there is an ongoing investigation against him ordered by Duterte.