T

he Jakarta Police will scale-up efforts to crack down on the sale of bootleg liquor as the homemade concoctions continue to claim lives in Greater Jakarta and beyond.

On Friday, the Cimanggis police in Depok, West Java, raided several kiosks and confiscated 200 liters of bootleg liquor, many of which were disguised as water in plastic bottles.

The raid was carried out in response to the recent deaths of six men in East Jakarta and Depok after they consumed what turned out to be lethal bootleg liquor.

'€œJakarta Police chief [Insp. Gen. Unggung Cahyono] has already ordered all police precincts to inspect kiosks or vendors selling herbal medicine because bootleg alcohol is often sold in these places,'€ Jakarta Police spokesman Sr. Comr. Rikwanto said at Jakarta Police headquarters on Friday.

The case grabbed the attention of local authorities in East Jakarta after locals vandalized the kiosk where the three men allegedly procured the bootleg liquor. The homemade concoctions, or oplosan, often come laced with poisonous substances such as rubbing alcohol and rubber adhesives.

The incident prompted a raid of the kiosk, where police officers found and confiscated several cases of 96-percent alcohol and multiple carbonated bottles and drink sachets. The kiosk owner had fled the scene and his whereabouts remain unknown.

Police data shows that dozens of persons have died in nine fatal incidents of bootleg liquor consumption in Greater Jakarta in 2014 alone.

Rikwanto said the police would conduct frequent raids and would arrest anyone found selling bootleg liquor, possibly charging them with selling dangerous substances.

'€œThese vendors, they don'€™t have any permits [to sell liquor] because they usually mix these drinks themselves. We could easily categorize the liquor as poison,'€ he said.

Local media reports described the three victims as having suffered severe abdominal pain, nausea, high blood pressure, dizziness and as having fallen unconsciousness before dying.

The case is not unique to Greater Jakarta. This year, at least 25 people have died and more than 100 others remain in intensive care in the West Java regencies of Garut and Sumedang '€” areas known for both for Islamic fundamentalism and high rates of oplosan consumption.

The victims were rushed to several hospitals, including Hasan Sadikin General Hospital in Bandung and Dr. Slamet General Hospital in Garut.

Dr. Slamet Hospital spokesperson Ade Sunarya said the patients had bought the oplosan recreationally.

'€œIt'€™s cheap. A plastic bag of bootleg liquor costs less than Rp 20,000 [US$1.63]. It'€™s called cherrybelle,'€ Ade said.

During a raid on Thursday, officers from the Bandung Police narcotics unit arrested three men who had been making and selling bootleg liquor for over a year. Officers confiscated some 3,000 bottles of orange-colored liquor.

Teddy Hidayat, a psychiatrist from Hasan Sadikin General Hospital, said that law enforcement was not enough to stop people from consuming bootleg liquor.

He said community-initiatives were key to curbing oplosan-consumption rates.

'€œMany people want to find satisfaction and happiness by drinking liquor. However, a lot of people don'€™t have enough money to buy the real deal and so they seek out the bootleg versions,'€ Teddy said