14 held for selling aphrodisiac and pornography
JAKARTA (JP): City police have declared war against sex businesses with the arrest of 10 aphrodisiac traders in the Kramat Tunggak redlight district and another four people for selling pornographic goods in Senen in a raid on the weekend.
"This is part of our concerted effort to protect the younger generation from moral degradation," City Police Chief Maj. Gen. Mochammad Hindarto said yesterday.
The two-star general said the weekend's raids, conducted three days after the arrest of the pimp Hartono, were conducted by two teams of detectives from the city police headquarters.
During the sweeping operation police confiscated 52 kinds of aphrodisiacs packed in 640 bottles and 32 pills, several pornographic magazines, mimeographed dirty storybooks, cards, stickers and 16 porn video cassettes.
In a raid on an aphrodisiac drug store in Senen, police also seized dozens of sex contraptions, including sex dolls and penis and vagina like toys
"We will continue the operation until the producers are arrested because we believe some of the stuff is produced by local companies," Hindarto said.
He also said that the traders will be brought to court because they have violated the law by selling aphrodisiacs not registered with the Ministry of Health and distributing illegal pornographic items.
Reports
Before the operation, police received reports from the public that pornographic magazines were being freely sold at Block E of the city owned Senen marketplace to buyers including adolescents.
Police also received reports that aphrodisiac traders around the Kramat Tunggak, the only authorized redlight district in the city, in North Jakarta sold sex paraphernalia which was not registered with the Ministry of Health.
Based on the tip-off, a team of officers headed by Capt. Iwan Rahmansyah, chief of the mobile detective unit at the city police headquarters, stormed the stands used by the traders as they closed up at 4 a.m.
Police caught four traders red-handed.
During interrogation, the suspects said they had run the business in hope of big profits.
A pack of pornographic cards sold for Rp 4,000, magazines for Rp 10,000 each, mimeographed porno-storybooks for Rp 1,000, video-cassettes at Rp 10,000 while stickers fetched Rp 2,000.
According to the criminal code's chapter 282, the suspects can be sentenced to nine months in jail in found guilty
At 9 p.m. on the same day, another group of detectives headed by Maj. Noenang Kohar SM, chief of the drug unit, rushed to the Kramat Tunggak redlight district in North Jakarta and confiscated various aphrodisiacs being flogged by traders from carts in front of the complex. Ten people were arrested in the Kramat Tunggak's raid. (jsk)