A RETIRED police general, who has an outstanding arrest warrant for his involvement in the irregularities surrounding a multi-billion peso drug bust in Manila in late 2022, has left the country.
In a press conference, Brigadier General Jean Fajardo, Police Regional Office-Central Luzon director and the concurrent spokesperson of the Philippine National Police, said the former ranking police official left for abroad on January 8, 2025, before the arrest warrant was issued against him and 28 others for violating Section 92 of the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002, which pertains to the delay and bungling in the prosecution of drug cases.
The said police personnel were also charged for the violation of Section 29 of the drug law or planting of evidence.
Of the accused police personnel, two were retired, one resigned from the service, three took the optional retirement, two were dismissed from the service while 22 others were still on active duty status.
Fajardo said that nine of the accused, including four active police personnel, three retired officers, one resigned, and one dismissed, are still at large.
She said 10 were under the custody of the arresting units, nine were detained at the PNP Custodial facility while one, dismissed Police Master Sergeant Rodolfo Mayo, was committed at the Manila City Jail.
The cases stemmed from the irregularities during the October 8, 2022 drug operations conducted in Tondo, Manila against Mayo who yielded two kilograms of shabu.
Based on the investigation of the National Police Commission (Napolcom) and the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG), which was submitted to the NPC, Mayo’s arrest was erroneously reported.
Instead of reporting Mayo’s arrest, he was brought to his lending office in the same city for an alleged follow-up operation, which resulted in the recovery of nearly a ton of shabu worth more than P6.7 billion.
The operation was declared but only implicating Mayo’s staff, Ney Atadero.
On the evening of that day, Mayo took part in an operation to serve a search warrant in Pasig City.
It was reflected in a report that Mayo was arrested at dawn on October 9 in Quiapo, Manila.
It was also later found that 42 kilos of shabu were stolen from the stash recovered from Mayo’s office. It was returned afterward. (TPM/SunStar Philippines)