91 drug dealers, addicts nabbed
Abdul Khalik, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
East Jakarta police have rounded up at least 91 drug dealers and addicts and confiscated hundreds of grams of drugs in various residential areas of the municipality over the past two weeks.
City police spokesman Sr. Comr. Tjiptono said on Monday that his officers had confiscated 143 grams of marijuana, seven packages of crystal methampetamine (shabu shabu), and three packages of heroin.
"We will continue to hunt down other traffickers and dealers in other parts of Jakarta. If we can't arrest them, at least we can push them out of the Greater Jakarta area," said Tjiptono.
He said police had finished all of the suspects' case files, and would soon hand them over to prosecutors.
Tjiptono said that the arrests showed that drug dealers had entered the neighborhoods as earlier raids in other municipalities in the capital had resulted in similar number of people arrested.
"Drugs trafficking has become one of our main concerns recently as we have found that drug traffickers have spread into (residential) neighborhoods," he said.
The number of drug users in the country has been estimated at four million people, with most living in Jakarta and other big cities, while the number of drug dealing and trafficking cases continued to increase throughout the Greater Jakarta area.
Last week police arrested four suspected members of a drug syndicate and confiscated 176 kilograms of marijuana.
A Nepalese, a suspected international drug supplier identified as Man Sing Gale, 40, was shot dead last April after he apparently resisted arrest in Bekasi, West Java. Police said they seized 1.25 kilograms of heroin, 276 grams of cocaine, 500 ecstasy pills and a firearm from his house.
Earlier, city police arrested 761 people, including five foreigners and some TNI and police personnel, seizing over one hundred kilograms of drugs in raids conducted in dozens of places across the capital.
City police chief Insp. Gen. Firman Gani recently ordered officers at every precinct in Jakarta, Tangerang, Bekasi and Depok, to arrest at least 32 drug dealers every month.
"We are now launching a total war against drug trafficking and drug dealing," Tjiptono said.