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bdul Aziz, also known as Daeng Aziz, is the epitome of a Jakartan underbelly boss, notorious for driving the shady business of the Kalijodo red-light district, the elephant in the room that pays the rent.

But Aziz'€™s venture and the tales of Kalijodo, among the oldest brothel districts in Southeast Asia, the bizarre love child born of a union between organized crime and a corrupt bureaucracy and law enforcement system, is about to come to an end.

That is after the police had Aziz arrested for an alleged offense that may disparage his infamous profile.

The arrest is based on a charge that one of Aziz'€™s Kalijodo clubs was allegedly involved in electricity poaching, causing state electricity firm PT PLN to suffer around Rp 500 million (US$37,590) in losses.

After weeks of campaigns by Aziz to oppose the Kalijodo clearance, scheduled for Monday, the police arrested the native of Makassar, South Sulawesi on Friday afternoon in a modest lodge in Central Jakarta.

Wearing a white T-shirt and pants, the tired-looking Aziz succumbed to the escort of a dozen officers in plain clothes. Aziz'€™s bodyguards were not present during the arrest.

'€œDA [Daeng Aziz] is now in the custody of the North Jakarta Police for allegedly stealing electricity,'€ the precinct'€™s chief, Sr. Comr. Daniel Bolly Hyronimus Tifaona, said.

Daniel said that PLN had reported Aziz to the police after his club, Kafe Intan, the biggest in Kalijodo, had for years been stealing electricity from nearby poles. If found guilty Aziz could spend seven years in prison for violating the 2009 Electricity Law.

Aziz'€™s lawyer Razman Arif Nasution denied the charge against his client, saying that the arrest was engineered to pave the way for Kalijodo'€™s clearance.

'€œThe police should not be involved in politics. The charge is just unacceptable,'€ he said.

The Jakarta Police have also planned to charge Aziz with human trafficking offenses for allegedly employing girls as prostitutes in his clubs in Kalijodo, located on the border between West and North Jakarta.

The arrest is unprecedented in Kalijodo'€™s history, where club owners have been notoriously immune from any prosecutions because of their alleged links with corrupt authorities.

While prostitution is illegal, many of the brothels are located just 20 meters from the local district office and 100 meters from a police station, lending credence to allegations that Kalijodo is a source of income for many bureaucrats and police officers.

From as long ago as the turn of the 18th century, tales of the beauty of the women strolling through Kalijodo, meaning the '€œRiver of Destiny'€, have been depicted in many records of the Dutch colonial era.

During the district'€™s lifetime, Aziz had not come into prominence until the early 1990s. Up until that time, several ethnic gangs feuded for control, but only three managed to survive: the Mandar, Makassar and Banten.

The Makassar gang crowned their new '€œgodfather'€, Aziz, in 1994 after their previous leader, Leang, was believed to have been killed by the Mandar in 1993.

In 2002, several media outlets reported a notorious act by Haji Aziz who pointed a gun at the then Penjaringan Police chief, Adj. Comr. Khrisna Murti, during a brawl with the Mandar in which members of that ethnic gang allegedly killed Aziz'€™s younger brother.

Khrisna is now the Jakarta Police'€™s director for general crimes and has recently been at loggerheads with Aziz after the latter opposed a plan by Jakarta Governor Basuki '€œAhok'€ Tjahaja Purnama to evict the residents and businesspeople from Kalijodo.

Calls for the eviction gained traction after a traffic accident that left four people dead on Jl. Daan Mogot in West Jakarta in early February. The crash had been caused by a drunk driver who had just engaged in a drinking binge in a Kalijodo club.

Opposing the evictions, Aziz and representatives of the residents visited the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) and the City Council on Feb. 15 to register their pleas against the plan.

He even made a plea to councilor and alleged former fellow underworld boss Abraham '€œLulung'€ Lunggana to overturn the plan.

In a coordination meeting between Ahok and Jakarta Police chief Insp. Gen. Tito Karnavian on Friday, both agreed to move forward with ending for good Jakarta'€™s oldest brothel district on Monday.

'€œAbout 5,000 joint personnel will participate in the operation,'€ said Tito.