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Smuggled mobile phones hidden under dogfruit, salted fish
The custom office discovered 5,700 Xiaomi cell phones, 328 Asus and Lenovo laptops and 40 Samsung tablets hidden under the sacks of dogfruit, candlenut and salted fish.
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Officials from the Jakarta Police show evidence confiscated from a smuggling attempt thwarted recently at Marunda Center Terminal in Bekasi, West Java. (kompas.com/Rindi Nuris Velarosdela)
T
he Customs and Excise Office in Palembang has successfully foiled an attempt to smuggle thousands of mobile phones and hundreds of laptops from a neighboring country into Indonesia through a local port.
Two people allegedly involved in the smuggling were currently on trial at the Palembang District Court, Dwijo Muryono, the head of the Customs and Excise Office for eastern Sumatra, said in Palembang on Nov. 27
He said the arrests were made in May this year, but it took several months to unveil details of the case due to a lengthy investigation process. Furthermore, the Customs and Excise Office also needed approval from the district attorney for all the evidence they had gathered.
Based on information from residents, the local customs office seized two trucks carrying the smuggled gadgets on May 22 on Jl. Soekarno Hatta in Palembang on their way to Jakarta. Inside the truck, the team discovered 5,700 Xiaomi cell phones, 328 Asus and Lenovo laptops and 40 Samsung tablets hidden under the sacks of jengkol (dogfruit), candlenut and salted fish.
Before being loaded onto the truck, the gadgets were smuggled on a boat that traveled by river to Tanjung Api-Api Port in Banyuasin regency, South Sumatra.
All the electronic gadgets were illegally brought into the country, mostly from Singapore. Furthermore, the team also discovered that the two Indonesians that were arrested planned to transport the electronics to Jakarta and Karawang, West Java.
"The state losses due to unpaid import duty could have reached Rp 1.2 billion due to the smuggling," Dwijo Muryono, the head of the Customs and Excise Office for eastern Sumatra, said.
