Police intelligence operatives killed an alleged top drug trafficker in Central and Western Visayas, who was also tagged as responsible for the killing of a former intelligence chief of Cebu province last year.
Brig. Gen. Rene Pamuspusan, director of the Western Visayas regional police, said Jinnefer Mercader tried to shoot it out with policemen in a raid in his safehouse in Barangay Minoyan in Murcia, Negros Occidental on Monday morning.
Pamuspusan said Mercader was included in the list of Top 10 High Value Individuals in Central Visayas and was also involved in the distribution of illegal drugs in some provinces of Western Visayas.
Seized from Mercader during the operation were eight plastic sachets containing shabu with a street value of almost P500,000, a .45 pistol, and a shotgun.
Mercader used to be the barangay captain of Barangay Lugo in Borbon, Cebu. He was on the order of battle of the local police for his alleged involvement in illegal drugs activities.
In 2017, Mercader was arrested for illegal possession of firearms. The policeman who worked on his arrest was Police Lt. Col. Joie Yape, then the head of the intelligence unit of the Cebu Provincial Police Office.
Yape was gunned down in Cebu City in November last year. He was already assigned to the Internal Affairs Service at Camp Crame but was in Cebu City that time for a three-day seminar.
Pamuspusan said Mercader was a self-confessed hitman who did a lot of dirty work for various local politicians. One of his victims was allegedly Yape.
“We always consider him as armed and dangerous,” said Pamuspusan.
Based on the intelligence reports of the Western Visayas regional police, Mercader was involved in several drug activities and was able to evade operatives in the buy-bust operation on August 27 this year in Barangay Taculing, Bacolod City.
A case was filed against him for violation of RA 9165 (Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002). Since then, intelligence monitoring has intensified to locate him.