Dutch woman arrested for smugling Ecstasy

JAKARTA (JP): Airport customs officers have arrested a 25-year-old Dutch woman for smuggling 11,370 Ecstasy pills into the country.

The confiscation of the pills, worth over Rp 1 billion in an illegal transaction, is said to be the biggest ever seizure in a single raid against Ecstasy traffickers in Indonesia.

The woman, identified only by her initials Arb, was arrested Sunday morning at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport after customs officers found pills hidden at the bottom of her black suitcase.

According to Nisfu Chasbullah, chief of the airport's customs office, the suspect had just arrived from Amsterdam via Singapore aboard KLM flight 831 when the X-ray inspection revealed the hidden pills.

Yesterday, police said that they have not been informed of the case.

"I have no idea about the case which I only learned about after reading today's newspapers," National Police Spokesman Brig. Gen. Nurfaizi told The Jakarta Post yesterday.

Nurfaizi explained that several crime investigation officers could not be reached yesterday evening.

According to Nisfu, the Dutch woman will be charged with smuggling illegal goods into the country as stipulated in the customs rules as well as possessing drugs that have not been registered with the Indonesian Ministry of Health .

The woman is the third Dutch national arrested here for drug trafficking this month.

On April 4, a Dutchman was arrested for attempting to sell 1,000 Ecstasy pills to an undercover policeman at a luxury hotel. According to the police, another 5,315 pills were found later at his rented house here.

On April 9, a second Dutchman was arrested at the same airport after he was found trying to smuggle in 3,900 Ecstasy pills stashed in his shoes.(bsr)