12 nabbed for trading currencies illegally
12 nabbed for trading currencies illegally
JAKARTA (JP): Police officers at Soekarno-Hatta International
Airport have arrested 12 men for trading currencies illegally in
the airport compound.
Posing as perfume sellers, the suspected illegal currency
traders offered their services to the passengers, particularly
foreign visitors and returning Indonesian workers, Tangerang
Police chief Lt. Col. Pudji Hartanto Iskandar told Antara on
Thursday.
"These 'dollar traders' bothered tourists and often insisted
the foreigners buy or sell their dollars," Pudji, who was
accompanied by airport police chief Capt. Titik Valentina, said.
All of the traders, however, were released after being
questioned and signing agreements that they would be taken to
court should they reopened, he added.
According to Pudji, they always intimidated their victims,
including female Indonesian workers who had just arrived from
overseas, if their offers were rejected.
Most of the victims were visitors from the Netherlands, Norway
and the United States, he said.
The illicit traders, the officers added, operated by hanging
around the airport's arrival terminal in cooperation with
middlemen, who are regularly seen all over the airport.
The news agency however gave no details of the arrests, nor
the identities of the suspects.
It only said that police also netted nine middlemen, alleged
to have helped the illegal currency traders.
The operation against the illegal "dollar traders" was
conducted in a week to meet complaints lodged by many foreigners
and arriving Indonesian workers, Pudji said.
The workers, for example, knew that they had been cheated by
the traders only after they reached their hometowns, thousands of
kilometers away from the capital.
They learned that their foreign notes had been tendered by the
traders at a very low rate compared to those listed at the local
banks and official money changers.
The locals reported the cases to the local police, who then
forwarded the news to the Soekarno-Hatta authorities.
"We received lots of calls from our colleagues in Central Java
and East Java reporting the fraud. But it's difficult for us to
investigate their cases," Pudji said.
Most of the workers were returning from Saudi Arabia, Hong
Kong, Singapore and South Korea. (bsr)