Bogus policemen on the up and up

Evi Mariani, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Crimes by bogus cops are on the rise again, with groups of men passing themselves off as police making several "raids" on civilians during the past few weeks, city police said.

On April 7, four people dressed in black jackets and brown trousers and claiming to be police detectives robbed an Internet cafe in Grogol, West Jakarta.

The robbers, two of whom were armed, held up eight customers inside the cafe and took their belongings. One toted a rifle, the other had a pistol, police said. They told their victims they were officers from the narcotics division making a raid.

The men then abducted a customer, who police identified as a doctor, Sotja, bundling him into a green Kijang minivan. The robbers dropped Sotja in Kebon Nanas, East Jakarta, after taking his cell phone and Rp 1 million (US$116) in cash, police said.

Also last week, three men claiming to be police robbed Ari Wibowo, a 22-year-old music studio attendant in Joglo, West Jakarta.

Ari was watching TV alone in the studio when the men took him into their Kijang van and robbed him and the studio before dropping him off at Mega Kebon Jeruk housing complex, also in West Jakarta, police said.

Bogus police incidents, where criminals dressed in police gear or passed themselves off as police, had been on the rise, with six cases reported in the first half of April alone, police said. The figure had jumped from March when only one case was reported.

Jakarta Police spokesman Sr. Comr. Prasetyo said on Tuesday so far investigations had revealed more than one gang was behind the incidents.

"They are not joined in one syndicate, this is the conclusion of our investigation," he said.

Prasetyo said the availability of police uniforms and insignia on the market made it easy for criminals to pass themselves off as police.

"Uniform vendors are supposed to sell the uniforms only to police officers who have to show their ID cards when purchasing them," he said. "But the vendors are often only interested in profit and therefore sell the uniforms to almost anybody."

Prasetyo said there were no regulations that put sanctions on vendors selling police uniforms to the public.

Police also recorded two reported cases of bogus officers in February. The criminals wore police uniforms and robbed motorists after stopping them on the pretext of checking their documents.

In March, a man wearing a police uniform attacked two bus drivers in Bekasi with a stick.

Police did not reveal any motive behind the beating and the man is still at large.