Four questioned over copied phones

JAKARTA (JP): City police spokesman Lt. Col. Bambang Permantoro confirmed to reporters yesterday that four entertainers have been questioned by city police for using counterfeit hand phones.

A police source said the four entertainers have been identified as Deddy Dhukun, Yacob, Baliyanto, and Dicky.

Yacob, Dicky and Baliyanto were picked up by police on Wednesday and spent a night in police custody, the source said.

"Deddy Dhukun is a possible suspect and will be questioned again within the week," the source said.

During the past week police have arrested six people for allegedly making counterfeit hand phones and stealing telephone pulses. Police have confiscated 12 hand phones and an electronic serial reader (ESR), which was used to detect the serial numbers of on-air hand phones.

A preliminary investigation led to duplicated hand phone buyers, including the four entertainers.

Head of the Jakarta Police Criminal Investigation Department, Col. Nurfaizi, said that the suspects used the ESR to detect hand phone serial numbers in use, and entered the numbers into the counterfeit hand phones.

Users of duplicated hand phones can only send calls, not receive them.

The pulses of counterfeited hand phones are recorded on original hand phones, whose serial numbers have been copied, with the fees being charged to the owner of the original phone. Because of the copying, many hand phone owners have complained to the state-owned telecommunication company PT Telkom that their call recorded pulses far exceeded the amount they used, Nurfaizi said.

Prices of legal hand phones vary from Rp 4 million (US$1,818) to Rp 7 million each, while duplicated ones can be bought for only Rp 1 million to Rp 2 million each.

The duplicated hand phones are usually sold secretly, person to person, in places such as bars, discotheques and pubs.

Nurfaizi warned consumers that, as well as counterfeiting hand phones, buying duplicated hand phones is also a crime.

"People should buy hand phones from the official agents of companies, which hold radio cellular communication system rights, and not from duplicators," Nurfaizi said.

The government has appointed four companies -- Telkomsel, Satelindo, Ratelindo and Komselindo -- to operate radio cellular communication systems and provide hand phones with official serial numbers to costumers. (01)