Guard busted for selling drugs in prison

Guard busted for selling drugs in prison

Damar Harsanto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

A guard at Cipinang Penitentiary in East Jakarta was seized red-
handed, while conducting a drug transaction with an inmate in the
high-security prison building, an official revealed on Saturday.

The suspect, Muara Simatupang, was arrested on Friday
afternoon at 5 p.m. while selling drugs to an inmate, named
Gunung Sihombing, who is serving a four-and-a-half-year sentence
for a drug case.

Penitentiary security chief Agus Sumanto admitted that it was
not the first case.

"A number of security guards have been caught in the last
couple of years due to drug-related crimes," Agus told The
Jakarta Post.

Drug dealing in the penitentiary has been prevalent for some
time, but the problem remains unsolved. The guards' low salary
and the opportunity to engage in a lucrative but illegal
business, coupled with the powerful drug syndicates in the prison
are factors which make it difficult to control. Last year, it was
reported that drug transactions in the prison amounted to Rp 20
million (US$2,000) per day.

Police confiscated four small packages of putaw (low grade
heroin) from Muara. Muara, who was responsible for security in
the first block of the penitentiary, had been monitored for two
months for allegedly selling drugs prison inmates.

Muara was a former civil servant at the now-defunct ministry
of information who was transferred to Cipinang Penitentiary to
help the security officers.

Muara is now being held at the East Jakarta Police precinct
after having been transferred from the Jatinegara Police
subprecinct's detention cell, a police officer said.

"Police are continuing their investigation into drug
trafficking in the penitentiary," said the officer at the East
Jakarta Police precinct.

Cipinang Penitentiary has around 2,300 inmates at present,
exceeding its intended capacity of only 1,700, with only 300
guards who work in four shifts around the clock.