Alleged porn merchant nabbed
Evi Mariani, Jakarta
The Jakarta Police cyber crime division has arrested Johny Indrawan Yusuf for distributing pornographic materials after they browsed the Internet and their suspicions were raised by the website www.vcdporno.com.
Cyber crime division chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Petrus Golose told the press on Tuesday that the investigation started months ago. They found out that the suspect subscribed to a domain with a server in Virginia, the United States.
"The Internet Protocol (IP) address of the web was 69.50.194.230," he said.
Police later contacted the U.S Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to get more information about the server.
"They provided us with the subscriber's names -- Lily Wirawan and Johny Yusuf. The two told the domain provider that they lived in Sydney, Australia," said Petrus. "But, the FBI said they could not help us shut down the website because such business is legal there."
Police traced the suspect and found that he lived in Malang, East Java.
"We arrested Johny at his home last week and brought him to Jakarta. We have detained him here," Petrus said. "It turned out that the name Lily Wirawan was fictitious. Johny made up the name to subscribe to the server."
From Johny's house, police confiscated a computer, a printer, a VCD duplicator, a modem, 56 pirated porn VCDs, sex toys, a box of pills, 300 blank VCDs, seven ATM cards and six bank books.
All bank accounts were registered under the name Hengky Wiratman, but the name was also fictitious.
"So far, the suspect has gained hundreds of customers across Indonesia. Some of them are even housewives in Sumatra," Petrus said.
Police believe that Johny had been working alone and he had used some private forwarders to send the orders throughout the archipelago.
Through the website, he reportedly sold porn VCDs copied from all over the world, pills to enhance sex drive and sex toys. By clicking on the website and transferring some money to the published bank accounts, customers were able to get their orders delivered to their home.
However, police did not say how much money the suspect earned every month from his business.
"We were informed that he sold each VCD for Rp 20,000, including the delivery fee," said Petrus.
Police charged Johny for violating Article 282 of the Criminal Code on distributing pornographic materials.