T

he East Nusa Tenggara (NTT) Police'€™s Anti-Human Trafficking task force has arrested Florida Lau, a key suspect in a human-trafficking case in Batam, Riau Islands.

Task force head Adj. Sr. Comr. Cecep Ibrahim said his team had arrested Florida in Wini in North Insana district, Timor Tengah Utara regency, NTT, at about 4 a.m. on Monday.

'€œThe suspect has been on the police'€™s wanted list for the past three months. He is very sneaky as we pursued him for four days after we detected him frequently taking Indonesian migrant workers through Timor Leste,'€ said Cecep.

Police said Florida had sent children from NTT to work illegally overseas since 2013. Before sending them to Malaysia or Singapore, the children would be housed in Batam by another suspect, identified only as J, who is also on the police'€™s wanted list.

Recently, two children from NTT escaped from the shelter and reported their situation to a pastor from NTT, who then lodged a report with the Riau Police. Based on their statements, a number of people had attempted to smuggle them overseas, including Florida, Lixi Killa Saduk, whose case files have been submitted to court, and Bob Riwu, who has been detained and legally processed.

Cecep said that Florida'€™s case files had been handed over to the court.

Last week, Kupang'€™s El Tari Airbase commander Col. Andi Wijaya said that authorities had foiled human-trafficking attempts to send 212 illegal migrant workers to work outside the province.

'€œThis is a huge figure, and it seems like the offenders are undeterred in selling fellow residents,'€ said Andi, adding that all of them hailed from Timor Island and were school dropouts.

Members of the task force from the El Tari Airbase have foiled attempts to smuggle out prospective illegal migrant workers almost daily this month.

Andi said that human traffickers used various methods to send workers outside the province.

He added that they always made up excuses to tell the airbase task force, such as they would go to Java to visit relatives and attend weddings or customary ceremonies.

However, when questioned further at the airbase, the illegal migrant workers would admit that they would be employed as maids, but they did not know the names and addresses of their employers, or the amount of salary they were to be paid.

Andi said that illegal migrant workers who were to be placed overseas claimed they had previously worked as maids in the destination countries. They had passports but not overseas employment permits.

'€œWe can deduct that at certain border crossings there are people that work with the recruiter and let the illegal workers pass through,'€ said Andi.