A policeman talks to Jerry Biton, who is tagged as the sixth most wanted man in Iloilo. (CDN PHOTO/LITO TECSON)
AFTER being on the run for 19 years, the long arm of the law finally caught up with a 50-year-old kidnapping suspect from Iloilo City after he was arrested yesterday morning in Minglanilla town, southern Cebu.
Jerry Biton, a native of Aniway, Iloilo, was arrested by operatives of the PNP Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG), Regional Intelligence Branch (PIB) and Regional Intelligence Division (RID).
Biton is sixth in the list of most wanted persons in Region 6 with P175,000 bounty on his head.
Authorities served the arrest warrant on Biton inside a gamefowl farm in barangay Guindaruhan, Minglanilla. Senior Supt. Ritchie Posadas, CIDG-7 chief, said they placed Biton under surveillance for a week.
Biton was allegedly involved in the kidnapping of a Chinese national in Iloilo City in 1995.
Biton said he had no direct participation in kidnapping, saying those involved just borrowed guns from him. He said the kidnappers gave him P20,000 as his share in the ransom paid by the victim’s family.
Biton said he has been traveling to Central Visayas, and has been living in Minglanilla for four years. He used to live in Bogo City where he got married in the late 1990s. “I will answer this case, but I don’t remember anymore the details of what happened,” he told reporters in Cebuano. Police will take him to Iloilo City today.