Two policemen implicated in robbery

Jakarta Police said they would follow-up reports of an alleged robbery of a cargo van carrying laptops, possibly implicating two police officers.

“We will handle the investigation while the National Police [Internal Affairs] will handle the alleged breach of police conduct [by the officers],” Jakarta Police spokesman Sr. Comr. Baharuddin Djafar said as quoted by tempointeraktif.com on Monday.

Baharuddin said that, should the officers – identified only by their initials as Brig. N.I. and First Brig. S. – receive more than three months in prison, they would be subject to dishonorable dismissals from the police corps.

Brig. N.I. and First Brig. S. could be charged with robbery.

Along with the two officers, police also arrested C., K. and U., civilian suspects, as possible accomplices in the robbery.

N.I. and S. allegedly stopped a cargo van with police car number B 9055 HU heading to Mangga Dua, North Jakarta, on Friday. N.I. and S. allegedly told the van driver, Sakirin, that they were conducting raids on illegal shipments. With that pretense, officers allegedly took Sakirin in their car, while the suspected civilian accomplices took the van, telling the driver that it could be retrieved later from the Jakarta Police Headquarters should the shipment document prove valid.

Baharuddin said police received the report on the robbery after the van owner came to the Jakarta Police Headquarters and could not find the van.

“Our detectives tracked down the car and we found the car as well as the van at the suspect's house in Lenteng Agung,” Baharuddin said.

Baharuddin added that police detectives only managed to recover 64 of the 77 laptops in the van.

“We are still trying to locate the missing units,” he said.