164 passports lost this year

JAKARTA (JP): The number of foreigners losing their passports has fallen from 517 in 1995 to 446 last year and to 164 in the first five months of this year, an official said yesterday.

The Ministry of Justice's director of immigration supervision, Zaiman Nurmatias, attributed this downward trend to last year's arrests of people involved in passport forging syndicates.

Zaiman said that most foreigners who claimed to have lost their passports and other immigration documents reported to the immigration office as soon as they had obtained substitute documents from their embassies.

"Our investigation shows that they entered Indonesia legally, meaning they all came through our immigration counters," he told The Jakarta Post.

Zaiman said that foreigners who lost passports or immigration documents had mostly come from Singapore, Australia, the United States, Netherlands, England or Japan.

Most passports had gone missing in Jakarta, Yogyakarta, Surabaya or Bali, Zaiman said.

He said that passport forging syndicates stole immigration documents to sell them to people wanting to immigrate or work in a third country.

Syndicates sold original visas for US$2,000 each and forged visas for US$3,500 each to people wanting to go to Australia or European countries, he said.

Stolen passports were usually from the United States, European countries or Australia. They gave people from Africa, the Middle East or Asia the chance to seek work in a third country, he said.

Zaiman urged foreigners to beware of the syndicates, which often operated in shopping centers and pubs in Jl. M.H. Thamrin, Central Jakarta, in Blok M, South Jakarta, and other public places.

"Also beware of those claiming to be tour guides. They prey on foreigners at the international Soekarno-Hatta Airport," he said. (aan)