Bogus policeman arrested

Bogus policeman arrested

DENPASAR: An alleged drug dealer, who, by convincingly
impersonating a high-ranking police officer, had once managed to
scare away a narcotics detective, was arrested on Sunday along
with a .38 caliber revolver and six ecstasy pills.

"We nabbed him this morning at the Scandal discotheque
in Seminyak, Kuta," chief of Bali Police narcotics division Adj.
Snr. Com. Bambang Sugiharto confirmed.

The suspect was identified as 33-year-old Nyoman
Dwipayana Putra, the owner of a bookstore in downtown
Denpasar.

A police source disclosed a recent incident, in which the
suspect managed to elude a police search by claiming that he was
a police captain and intimidating junior officers.

"The junior officers backed off and let him walk
away untouched," the source said.

The suspect tried a similar tactic on Sunday morning when the
six-member team, led by First Insp. Awan Hariono, surrounded his
table.

This time, however, the suspect inflated his rank into
that of a police commissioner of the Provost Division and even
produced a photograph of himself wearing a police commissioner's
uniform.

But the officers were not taken in and decided to arrest him,
seizing the ecstasy pills and a revolver stashed in a cupboard in
his house. -- JP