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man arrested by the city police for producing and distributing ecstasy pills has admitted that he learned the skill from his father, who ran the family business from a Tangerang prison.

Jakarta Police antinarcotics division chief Sr. Comr. Anjan Pramuka Putra said on Thursday that the suspect, 25, was arrested in his rented house on Jl. Sinar Budi in Penjaringan district, North Jakarta, last Saturday. The police declined to reveal the suspect’s name.

Police confiscated 9,210 ecstasy pills and 9 kilograms of ingredients, including caffeine and methamphetamine, worth about Rp 5 billion (US$560,000) in total from the house.

The suspect’s father is serving an eight-year jail sentence, while the suspect’s older brother was arrested on May 6 in an apartment in Tanjung Duren, West Jakarta, where 2,525 pills and more than 25 kilograms of ingredients were confiscated.

“Our preliminary finding also showed that [the older brother] controlled the younger brother’s] movements from his cell in the Salemba detention center,” Anjan said.

“The family owned a device that could produce high-quality ecstasy pills in a short time as they did not need to be dried,” he said.

The device is available in most stores that sell medical equipment for hospitals and pharmacies, Anjan added. No medical license is required to buy the item, he said.

The head of the psychotropic unit at the city police, Adj. Sr. Comr. Hendra Joni, said the suspect could produce up to 200 pills a day, adding that the actual amount was dictated by his brother’s orders from jail.

“We ran a laboratory check and we found out that each pill was worth Rp 250,000 on the black market.

“[The suspect] sent the drugs himself to his family’s long-term customers in Greater Jakarta and Bandung, West Java,” Hendra said.

Hendra said the suspect sold liquefied petroleum gas at his rented house as a front.

Police said they were investigating whether the suspect’s three children were involved in the racket. They said they were hunting the person who supplied the drug ingredients to the suspect.

“There is an indication that [the supplier] got [the father] involved in the business,” he said.

As of May, the city police had uncovered 2,960 cases related to drug abuses this year. The figure is twice that in the same period last year.

The institution reported it had solved 37,000 drug cases in the past five years. (rch)