Police to trace liquor
killing of Briton after
factory raid

The police will investigate the liquor killing of a female British tourist in April following a raid at a factory mixing adulterated liquor in Deli Serdang regency on Friday.

The Medan City Police detectives chief, Comr. Yorris Marzuki said his force would coordinate with the Langkat Police in the investigation as the factory in Deli Tua district also produced Mansion House, which was consumed by Cheznye Jade Kinsy Rose Emmons, 23.

Emmons died after drinking Mansion House Dry Gin with her boyfriend and friends on April 20 in Bukit Lawang. She died when referred to Colombia Hospital in Medan with doctors declaring that her death was due to methanol
poisoning.

“We do not know yet whether the victim drank adulterated liquor from this factory but the distribution area does include Langkat and other tourism spots in North Sumatra and Aceh,” Yorris told The Jakarta Post on Friday evening after the raid.

He added that the pirated brands included Mansion House Dry Gin, Vodka and Brandy VSOP.

Yorris said the police have confiscated various production tools such as bogus labels, chemicals, thousands of empty bottles and caps and bottle cleaner devices.

“We have yet to identify the contents of the adulterated liquor. We will send samples to the laboratory to find out,” he said.

“There have been reports from the public of the whereabouts of the factory since 2012. Based on the reports, we monitored activities in the factory over the past two months. We managed to reveal the activity after posing as buyers.”

Yorris said the factory’s turnover was huge, at billions of rupiah per month, making it the police’s largest raid this year.

When asked about who owns the factory, he said the police were still unsure but the owner was most likely from Medan. He added that the police had detained three workers and a driver, who had been named suspects.

The suspects are charged with Articles 90, 91, 92, 93, 94 and 95 of Law No. 15/2001 on Trade Mark, Articles 138 and 140 of Law No. 18/2009 on Food and Article 24 of Law No. 5/1984 on Industry. They could face five years in prison.

Meanwhile, Langkat Police detectives chief, Adj. Comr. Rosyid Hartanto said his force would be ready to cooperate with the Medan City Police to reveal the origin of the adulterated liquor that killed Emmons.

He admitted that the Langkat Police had yet to start a formal investigation into the case because there had been no official reports lodged.

“We are still waiting for a report from the family or the British Embassy on the case,” Rosyid said.