Illegal Production of Minyakita Cooking Oil Busted in Sidoarjo

Sidoarjo, East Java (ANTARA) -

East Java Regional Police (Polda Jatim) have uncovered an alleged illegal production practice of Minyakita branded cooking oil in Sidoarjo, East Java, arresting four suspects involved in the criminal activity.

Director of the Special Criminal Investigation Directorate of Polda Jatim, Senior Commissioner of Police (Kombes Pol) Roy Hutton Marulamrata Sihombing, stated that the suspects HPT, MHS, SST, and ARS produced Minyakita without official permits and used mismatched BPOM certificates and SNI labels.

“The four suspects from PT Sinar Agung Abadi engaged in repackaging bulk cooking oil into branded Minyakita packaged products, during which the quantities were also reduced,” Roy said in Sidoarjo on Tuesday.

According to him, the company reduced the quantities in the Minyakita production, with packages labelled as one litre filled with 700-900 millilitres of bulk oil, and five-litre packages filled with 4.6 litres.

Roy explained that the four arrested suspects had respective roles: HPT as the financier, MHS and SST as supervisors, and ARS as the production operator.

He stated that this illegal oil was then distributed to several regions in Indonesia, including Tarakan in North Kalimantan, as well as Jember and Trenggalek in East Java.

“This criminal activity has been ongoing since December 2023 and each production run can yield 900-1,000 cartons with a turnover of approximately Rp234,996,000,” Roy said.

He revealed that from the suspects, police seized various pieces of evidence, including production machines, storage tanks, empty packaging, hundreds of cartons of ready-to-distribute cooking oil, and one tanker truck used for distributing raw materials.

The suspects can be charged under Article 120 of Law No. 3 of 2014 on Industry, as well as Article 62 paragraph 1 in conjunction with Article 8 paragraph 1 letter A or B of Law No. 8 of 1999 on Consumer Protection.