91 drug dealers, addicts nabbed
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.