‘Cohort’ of suspected Leyte drug lord arrested in Cebu
Suspected drug pusher Roderic James Palermo Espina covers his face after police operatives arrested him in a buy-bust operation early morning Wednesday. JUNJIE MENDOZA/ CEBU DAILY NEWS
CEBU CITY—Police operatives arrested an alleged cohort of suspected drug lord Rolando “Kerwin” Espinosa Jr. inside a pension house in Barangay (village) Lorega, Cebu City past 5 a.m. on Wednesday.
Roderick James Espina, 54, and a native of Maasin town, southern Leyte, did not resist arrest even if the police barged into his rented room without any warrant.
READ: Lawyer of suspected drug lord, teener shot dead in Leyte
It was only five hours after his arrest that the police learned that Espinosa had an arrest warrant for frustrated murder.
The police, however, didn’t release details on the warrant as Espina was still being interrogated as of 10:15 a.m. on Wednesday.
Espina denied selling illegal drugs and knowing Espinosa, said to be the biggest drug lord operating in Eastern Visayas and parts of Cebu.
He admitted he had been a drug user since he was 18 but recently planned to surrender to the police amid its intensified illegal drugs campaign.
“Bisan pa og ila ko i-lie detector test, wala gyud ko kaila ana niya (Kerwin). Mamatay pa ko karon kon namakak ko. (I’m willing to undergo a lie detector test to prove I don’t know Kerwin. I can die now if I’m not telling the truth),” he told the Inquirer.
Espina, only child of the late Maasin Mayor Edgarino Espina, said he came to Cebu in the 1980s and settled down in Barangay Lahug, Cebu City.
He, however, had a spat with his wife in February 2016, prompting him to move out of their home and rent a room at Allsons Inn in Barangay Lorega.
“I’m really depressed because of my broken relationship with my wife,” he said.
The Regional Special Operations Group and the Regional Anti-Illegal Drugs Special Operations Task Force received information from an employee of Allsons Inn that Espina had refused to let any staff member get inside his room since he checked in last February.
But what triggered the suspicion was when Espina started bragging to the staff members that he and Espinosa were friends.
The police then conducted a surveillance operation after receiving a tip, said PO1 Reynaldo Solante.
Past 5 a.m., policemen barged into his room and found one plastic bag of marijuana, a sachet of shabu, assorted drug paraphernalia, .45 caliber pistol, and a .22 revolver.
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