Foreigners arrested for visa forgery

Abdul Khalik, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Two persons holding passports from the Republic of Congo were arrested on Monday for falsifying documents including visas, passports and credit cards at an apartment in Pulogadung, East Jakarta.

City Police spokesman Sr. Comr. Tjiptono said that the two, identified as Ncula Viende, 38, and Bien Vienne, 26, were now being questioned at the East Jakarta police station.

"We have strong evidence that they have been running this forgery scam for quite some time. We have also confiscated fake passports, visa stamps and credit cards from their apartment," Tjiptono told The Jakarta Post.

He said the two men would be charged with articles under the immigration law and Criminal Code, with a maximum punishment of six years imprisonment.

Acting on a tip from an Indonesian accomplice nabbed earlier, police monitored the activities of Viende and Vienne for several weeks.

To be able to arrest them, undercover police officers actually ordered fake passports with visas from them. At 5 p.m. on Monday, the police raided their apartment and found the two preparing the documents the police had ordered earlier.

They did not resist arrest.

"They own a computer and several official stamps and seals, with which they forge documents. We are now investigating whether they are members of a larger syndicate or if they were working alone," Tjiptono said.

He said that officers were also investigating whether the two were involved in drug trafficking.

Tjiptono said that it was possible that the two had been producing the fake documents so that drug syndicate members could easily move in an out of this and other countries.

Suspected members of a Nigerian drug syndicate identified as Emeka Coku, 31, and his Indonesian companion identified as Puspi, 26, were arrested on Sunday after trying to sell heroin to undercover police officers in front of the Sarinah department store in Central Jakarta.

A joint team from the city police, the immigration office and the Jakarta Narcotics Agency earlier arrested two suspected Nigerian drug dealers, identified as Franky Okolha and Abdul Prince, in their rented house in the Tanah Abang area of Central Jakarta, allegedly in possession of 70 grams of heroin.

Earlier, two other men, identified as Nwaolisa Hansen Anthony and George Obinya, were convicted of drug trafficking and put behind bars by the Central Jakarta District Court.