REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, TANGERANG -- Some 14 members of an international drug network have been arrested in the past two months while trying to smuggle illicit drugs through the Soekarno-Hatta International Airport. In all, 4,273 grams of contraband drugs were recovered from them and will serve as evidence.
Police Commissioner Herry Sumarji said in Tangerang on Tuesday that the suspects were arrested in a number of cases after the joint forces comprising Customs officers and personnel of the Airport Police uncovered caught them. Seven of the suspects were arrested immediately after they stepped into the international arrival hall. Two of them were foreigners.
The rest were arrested based on further investigations into the testimonies of the suspects arrested initially. The suspects, members of various international syndicates, were arrested in Surabaya and Palembang.
At the moment, all of these criminals are in custody and investigations were on to detect other syndicates. "We will continue to investigate this case deeply as these suspects are part of international syndicates and received their drugs supplies from overseas," he remarked.
Head of Soekarno-Hatta Airport's customs services, Erwin Situmorang, added that the first attempt took place in the beginning of August when a suspect with initials SBV was arrested. He was a South African national and was found carrying 740 grams of methamphetamine in his undergarments.
In the middle of August, the authorities thwarted another smuggling attempt when a Chinese national was found carrying 990 grams of the contraband in the same fashion. In September, an Indonesian national, identified as J, was arrested as soon as he arrived from Malaysia. He was found in possession of 960 grams of drug which was concealed in a suitcase.
At the end of September, the authorities thwarted another attempt to smuggle drugs by catching the man who had hidden 183 grams of contraband anally.
Around the same time, the officers arrested three people with 1,400 grams of meth hidden in their socks. "All kinds of old and new methods were being used by the smugglers," he noted.
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