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.