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The Bali Police announced on Tuesday that an internal investigation had uncovered the involvement of seven local police personnel in the extortion of cash from a group of Australian tourists who visited the resort island earlier this year.

Deputy Bali Police chief Brig. Gen. Nyoman Suryasta said a recent joint investigation conducted by the Bali Police'€™s intelligence, general crime and internal affairs directorates had found that the extortion, which was reported for the first time by Australian media in June, had in fact occurred.

'€œYes, it [the extortion allegation] is true,'€ Suryasta said. '€œThere were seven police personnel who were involved. We, however, will examine the role of each of them as we extend [our investigation into] the case.'€

The Sydney Morning Herald reported on June 21 that the incident happened in February when Australian tourist Mark Ipaviz and his friends were holidaying in Bali.

On their last night on the resort island, they organized a private event at an upmarket Seminyak restaurant and hired a stripper for the party.

After the stripper began her performance, security guards stormed in and allegedly used taser weapons against the Australians, as well as beating them with guns and bottles.

Your comments:

However, the most important thing is we have revealed that they committed an act that violated our ethical and professional code.

Violating the police ethical and professional code is a daily occurrence among Indonesian police officers. I think it would be difficult if not impossible to find even 0.01 percent of the police force that doesn'€™t accept bribes, even if not directly then via the '€œpass up payment'€ method instilled in every department.

Vanu

Business as usual. The only thing this investigation will achieve is senior police taking a bigger slice for themselves. Avoid the place.

Lordvoltara

Time to admit you backed the wrong horse? And perhaps time to apologize for inferring they were instead caught and extorted for doing drugs or gambling?

'€œOur examinations found that it really happened. It was a fact.'€ '€” Bali Police

Abu

I am reminded of the two Australians that were shot. They maintained that if they had paid money to the judges in the case that their sentence that would have been commuted. I believe them, as do plenty of other people.

Edwin Cameron

Of course the Bali officers deny it! You expect them to say '€œYes, we extorted money from the tourists'€? Come on, be realistic!

Pauloh