Mafnas said Palacios was arrested in his car on a road in Chalan Kanoa at 5 p.m. The lawmaker, the commissioner added, did not buy a plane ticket to leave the CNMI as reported by the Saipan Tribune.
“That’s not true,” Mafnas said, adding that investigators handling the case had been keeping their eye on Palacios over the last few weeks.
“Anyone involved in drug trafficking is literally poisoning the members of the community and that is unacceptable and DPS will never tolerate such actions,” the commissioner said.
Palacios, Covenant-Saipan, told the Variety last week that he “might have used ice in the past,” but never sold it, and that he was already staying away from it. He indicated that he knew he was going to be arrested.
Variety learned that two of Palacios’s former girlfriends were hooked on illegal drugs and that it was one of them who informed on the Precinct 2 lawmaker.
First elected in 2007, Palacios easily won re-election in 2009 and was the top vote-getter in his precinct, which covers Chalan Kanoa and Susupe.
