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)