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View all search resultsBatam Immigration investigates alleged extortion of foreign tourists
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A ferry arriving from Batam Island heads toward the Harbour Front in Singapore on July 15, 2022.
(AFP/Roslan Rahman)
I
mmigration authorities are investigating officers from Batam Immigration Office over reports that they have been extorting up to S$250 (US$194.50) from ASEAN passport holders in exchange for entry into Batam.
“Thank you for the information given. We apologize for the inconvenience,” head of the Batam Immigration Office information and communication section, Kharisma Rukmana, said in a written statement to The Jakarta Post on Thursday.
“Currently, the Immigration Directorate General’s Internal Compliance Directorate is studying and investigating the report.”
Batam Immigration Office head Hajar Aswad said that if the investigation found violations by officers, his office would take severe action against those perpetrators in accordance with the prevailing regulations.
“Batam Immigration Office is committed to zero tolerance of any form of illegal levies and will follow up all suspected violations in an objective and professional way,” he said.
Neither Kharisma nor Hajar, however, elaborated on how many Immigration officers were being questioned by the Internal Compliance Directorate, or whether the extortion reports could be verified by CCTV camera recordings at the port.
Reports of suspected extortion were first published by Singaporean online news channel Mothership.sg on Wednesday. Two separate groups of tourists had similar experiences.
