300 tons of fuel seized, 111 arrested ahead of price hike

300 tons of fuel seized, 111 arrested ahead of price hike

Abdul Khalik, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Jakarta Police announced on Thursday that they had arrested 111
people in the last three months for allegedly hoarding fuel,
illegally selling it to factories or sending it to other areas.

City police head of operations Sr. Comr. Komang Udayana said
that they had also confiscated over 300 tons of various kinds of
fuel from the suspects across the capital.

"We know that many people will try to take advantage of the
government's announcement of the fuel price increases. This is
evident by the many public complaints on fuel shortages. We have
arrested 111 people in 72 cases," he said.

Police confiscated two tons of premium (subsidized) gasoline,
85.5 tons of diesel fuel, 215 tons of kerosene and 85 tons of
other types of fuel during an operation to crackdown on hoarders
and smugglers.

Komang said that the police had launched the special operation
in July.

"We will continue with this operation to curb crimes related
to fuel misappropriation at least until the end of Idul Fitri. We
have information that many more perpetrators are still out
there," he said.

Residents have complained of difficulty in buying kerosene and
other fuel in recent months.

The government announced recently that they would have to
increase fuel prices on Oct. 1.

Vice President Jusuf Kalla has stated that some fuel prices
could be increased by up to 80 percent to ease the burden of
expensive subsidy payments on the state budget.

Komang said that several agents and others were stockpiling
fuel so that they could sell it later when the price was put up.

He added that many other people intentionally bought kerosene
from retailers or other agents, who had a permit to sell only
their kerosene to households, but resold it to factories, a a
much higher price.

The government has set the price of kerosene for households at
Rp 700 per liter, and the price for factories is Rp 2,200 per
liter.

Police arrested Tan Kim Pauw, 60, last Wednesday in his house
in Palmerah, West Jakarta and confiscated over 3,000 liters of
kerosene after a number of his neighbors in the area reported
difficulties in buying kerosene for their daily needs.

Tan confessed that he bought most of the kerosene from a
variety of licensed kerosene agents and retailers in the
surrounding area for Rp 1,000 per liter, and then re-sold it to
factories in Tangerang for between Rp 2,200 and Rp 5,500 per
liter.

Several other agents would apply for licenses from Pertamina
to enable them to distribute kerosene to households in a given
area, but then they sold it to factories outside the city.

The police revealed recently that they had been monitoring 13
of 42 kerosene agents in Tangerang for possible misuse of their
licenses.

Police said that Pertamina supplies 29 million liters of
kerosene in Tangerang every month as many people continued to
complain about the difficulty of finding kerosene.

"Normally, Tangerang only needs around 15 million liters of
kerosene. So, where's the rest of it? The 13 agents have
confessed that they were selling the kerosene to factories from
Serang to Jakarta and other places to make higher profits,"
Komang explained.