Custom officials foil 19 smuggling attempts

TANGERANG (JP): The customs and excise office of the Soekarno- Hatta International Airport have managed to foil 19 smuggling attempts of items worth about Rp 782.2 billion (US$97.77 million) over the last 10 months, an official said on Thursday.

Heru Santoso, the office's head, told reporters that smuggling attempts covered various items, ranging from 67,527 compact discs, 2,339 cobras, 1,140 Viagra pills, 100.3 kilograms of marijuana and six arrows to 42 pistols.

Other items confiscated by the customs and excise officers included 270 bullets, electric vibrators and a number of invaluable antique goods, he said.

Heru explained that six of the 19 smuggling cases were uncovered in the period between Dec. 23 and Jan. 3 with confiscated items consisting of 11,200 computer program CDs to be sent to Turkey, 5,600 game CDs to be sent to the United Arab Emirates, 810 Viagra pills and 5 kg of marijuana.

"The smuggling attempts were conducted through falsified documents, while the Viagra pills and marijuana were sent by airmail," he said.

The largest case was uncovered in mid November, involving 9,270 computer program CDs, 1,010 CDs and 20,000 fake multimedia CDs, he said, adding that the smuggling practices caused their intellectual property rights holders losses amounting to about Rp 500 billion.

In order to prevent other smuggling of the same products, Heru said that his office had coordinated closely with the police and the associations of the intellectual property rights holders.

Meanwhile, Nelson Edward Worotikan, head of the Tangerang Prosecutors' Office, led the burning of confiscated items in the form of 137 Ecstasy pills, 225 grams of Ecstasy powder, 13 kg of marijuana and 8 kg of heroin powder at the Puspitek compound in Serpong.

The burning of the items was witnessed by representatives of Soekarno-Hatta airport, the Tangerang District Court, the police and related offices.

Suhaimi of the prosecutor's office explained that the destruction of the items, which were taken in 33 criminal cases, had been approved by the Supreme Court.

"Puspitek compound was chosen for the burning of the items as it has a large-scale furnace, which can destroy the goods within a short period of time without causing any pollution," he added. (41/hhr)