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Police thwart smuggling attempt of 84 kg of drugs from China
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Busted: National Police chief Gen. Tito Karnavian (right) is about to brief the media following a major drug bust on Jan. 6. On Monday, the police and the Customs and Excise Office announced they had foiled an attempt to smuggle 84 kilograms of crystal methamphetamine from China. (Antara/M. Agung Rajasa)
T
he National Police’s Criminal Investigation Department announced on Monday it had foiled an attempt to smuggle 84 kilograms of crystal methamphetamine in an operation conducted by the Finance Ministry’s Directorate General of Customs and Excise.
The police said the crystal meth was discovered in 14 units of vehicle buffers. Packed in wooden crates, the metal cylinders with a thickness of about 2.5 centimeters were shipped in a container from China to Indonesia. Each buffer contained 6 kg of crystal meth.
“If they send it in a conventional way, it would have been detected by police dogs. So, they hid them in buffer dampers,” National Police chief Gen. Tito Karnavian said at Bhayangkara Police Hospital in East Jakarta on Monday.
Customs and Excise director Heru Pambudi explained the investigation began from information it received from China’s General Administration of Customs, which informed them about a suspected drug shipment to Indonesia.
The team tracked the shipment, which was rerouted to Bandar Lampung before it was delivered to Jakarta, he added.
“We continued to trail the shipment after it was picked up by a courier and delivered to the suspect,” Heru said.
Security officers arrested the suspect when he received the package in Tangerang, Banten, on Thursday. From information he revealed, on Sunday, investigators managed to trace the whereabouts of another suspect, a dealer, who operated in Bandung, West Java.
“We asked the dealer to show us his warehouse in Cipondoh, Tangerang. However, he tried to to escape so he was shot and killed," Heru said.
The suspect has been charged with Articles 114 and 132 of Law No. 35/2009 on narcotics and could face a maximum punishment of the death penalty or a minimum sentence of six years in prison. (dis/ebf)
