R

iau Islands'€™ Customs and Excise Office has pledged to arrest those behind a ship-to-ship fuel smuggling operation worth Rp 450 billion (US$37.94 million) in waters close to Karimun island.

Customs'€™ spokesperson Toni Karlinda said his office had detained the crew of the MT Jelita Bangsa tanker ship, which was chartered by state-owned oil and gas company PT Pertamina, and the MT Ocean Maju on June 3 for allegedly smuggling crude oil.

'€œWe are still investigating the owner [of the oil] and those behind the operation. We will cooperate with the police,'€ Toni told The Jakarta Post on Sunday.

He said the customs officers were still guarding the ships, which were still in Karimun waters as they could not dock at the small island.

Toni went on that the two 60,000 metric-ton tankers were seized when the Jelita Bangsa was transferring its 59,507.66 metric tons of crude oil to the Ocean Maju, which was unregistered.

He said customs officers in a patrol boat found the tanker crews were transferring the crude oil using big pipes.

'€œWe then apprehended them without encountering any resistance,'€ Toni added.

He explained that the crude oil, which was taken from the oil well belonging to Chevron Pacific Indonesia in Dumai, Riau province, should be transported to Pertamina'€™s Balongan refinery in Indramayu, West Java.

In relation to the customs office'€™s investigation into those behind the smuggling attempt, Riau Islands Police chief Brig. Gen. Endjang Sudrajat could not be reached for comment on Sunday.

The ship-to-ship smuggling method (locally known as kapal kencing), is nothing new in Riau Islands waters.

Many observers say the crime is due to the high disparity between the price of subsidized fuel and fuel in neighboring countries.

Sources say the smugglers paid '€œsecurity personnel'€ to safeguard the transfer of the oil.

The sources revealed crew members usually received high salaries of between Rp 10 million (US$843.17) to Rp 30 million each for successful smuggling operations.

In 2010, Batam customs foiled an attempted ship-to-ship theft of fuel at sea, seizing two vessels '€” the Indonesia-flagged MT Eternal Oil and the Singapore-based Malaysia-flagged MT Jie Sheng, detaining dozens of crew members from both vessels.

The Eternal, which was chartered by Pertamina, had set out from Palembang, South Sumatra, heading to Sangata, East Kalimantan. It was carrying 613.57 tons of diesel fuel.

On the way, the vessel supplied 480 tons of its load to the Jie Sheng.