Indonesia, Singapore team up in cocaine investigation

Damar Harsanto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Indonesian police and Singaporean authorities have teamed up to investigate the owner of an unclaimed suitcase packed with 10.6 kilograms of cocaine worth Rp 19 billion (US$2.24 million) which was found at the Soekarno-Hatta International Airport last week.

"The Indonesian police are cooperating with Singaporean authorities to unravel the case," said National Police deputy spokesman Sr. Comr. Zainuri Lubis on Monday.

He said that Indonesia's National Narcotics Agency (BNN) and Singapore's Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB) were working together.

"We are also cooperating with Brisbane police in Australia. However, we are still in the dark about the sender and the owner of the cocaine," said Zainuri.

The untagged black suitcase was sent last Wednesday through Singapore Airlines SQ164 from Singapore's Changi Airport and ended up in Soekarno-Hatta Airport.

Jusuf Indarto, head of customs and excise office at the airport, said earlier that two unclaimed bags should have been returned to Singapore but since there was no name and address on the bags they were kept.

Suspicious officers later opened the two bags and found 11 packages containing cocaine in one of the bags. The packages were wrapped in a blanket covered with coffee to evade sniffer dogs.

A spokesman for Singapore Airport Terminal Services (SATS) explained the process to The Straits Times recently: "Unclaimed bags are sent for screening and once declared 'clean', they are sealed and stored until they are claimed."

A bag is opened only if it remains unclaimed for more than two days, to see if there is a forwarding address, said the spokesman.