Car smuggling details revealed at court

JAKARTA (JP): Customs officers yesterday revealed to a court here the detailed account of a motor vehicle smuggling attempt made a few months ago.

Suharto, a customs officer working at a port storage facility, told the North Jakarta district court that he grew suspicious when he saw a seemingly hesitant driver near the port's checkpoint on Sept. 14 of last year.

"The man drove the car to the exit point, but did not actually exit," Suharto said, adding that all documents are checked before containers are allowed to exit.

After questioning the driver, Suharto added, it was discovered that the container was not sealed with a yellow tag, which would indicate that all administration procedures and paperwork had been cleared. In addition, the invoice did not agree with a list filed by the customs department.

The container was subsequently not allowed to pass through. It was placed in a special storage site and sealed with a red tag indicating it was suspected, Suharto added.

About 45 days later, an attempt was made to remove the red- sealed container from the storage site, Ahmad Adijaya, another customs officer, told the court.

Ahmad said that he learned about the attempted exit on Oct. 31 from his subordinates.

"The driver did not have any documents to show us. He said that some other people had come earlier to deliver them, but we never found them," Ahmad added.

Achmad Kosim, a third witness, said he was ordered by his superior to locate an original record bearing the delivery permit number earlier confiscated by Suharto. He said that several discrepancies were detected, including different types of paper used for the invoice, different locations of invoice serial numbers, and the port logo was stamped only on the false invoice, as opposed to original ones, which bear a printed logo.

Three men are being charged with smuggling two luxury cars and a motorcycle by falsifying a delivery order permit and an invoice list. A fourth suspect, Mulyono, remains at large.

The invoice declared that the container was filled with various vehicle spare parts. A modified blue Mercedes 500 SL, a black Porsche 991 and an 800-cc Honda motorcycle were its actual contents.

All three suspects claimed to have not known about the container's contents.

Court was adjourned yesterday and will continue today. (14)