MANILA - Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra said Tuesday there was no need yet to seek assistance from the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) in efforts to locate Peter Go Lim.

“Too early to alert Interpol. No record that Peter Lim has left the country since his indictment,” Guevarra said in a text message.

Lim was indicted by the Department of Justice for conspiracy to trade in illegal drugs, along with self-confessed ‘shabu’ distributor Kerwin Espinosa and several others.

A half a million reward has since been offered to speed up Lim's arrest.

The DOJ has accused Lim of supplying at least 90-kilos of ‘shabu’ to the so-called Espinosa drug group in regions 7 and 8 in 2013 and 2015. Separate drug transactions also allegedly took place, with an unspecified volume of ’shabu,’ in 2014.

The Cebu-based businessman denied the charges during the preliminary investigation into the complaint filed by the Philippine National Police’s Criminal Investigation and Detection Group.

Bureau of Immigration records show that Lim left the country in March and returned 4 days later. There was no record of him going abroad again.

The DOJ had earlier warned persons who may be coddling Lim that “they will be prosecuted for obstruction of justice and punished accordingly.”