Maritime crimes sail unsolved for lack of boats

Maritime crimes sail unsolved for lack of boats

JAKARTA (JP): About 75 percent of criminals at sea around the
Jakarta area have got away with their crimes due to the
insufficient number of sea patrol boats, an officer revealed on
Wednesday.

Head of the Jakarta Water Police unit Sr. Supt. Achmad Nazif
said the existing patrol boats could not keep up with the growing
number of crimes at sea, which mostly come in the form of
smuggling and illegal fishing.

"We don't have enough high-speed power boats while the
criminals mostly have powerful engine boats and the number of
crimes at sea, especially those concerning stolen logs, have kept
increasing," Achmad told The Jakarta Post after a ceremony
marking the introduction of a new high-speed boat at the Water
Police Headquarters in North Jakarta.

Last month alone, his office recorded 37 crimes that could
have been solved by his personnel in their patrol area of the
Java Sea. The cases, he said, mostly concerned stolen logs and
illegal fishing activities carried out mainly by boats from
Thailand.

Last week, Achmad added, his men managed to solve 11 sea
crimes in their zone.

But the actual number of crimes committed was much higher, he
added.

Last month, the police seized nine cargo ships carrying 5,315
cubic meters of logs believed to have been stolen from various
forests in Sumatra and Kalimantan. The ships were about to unload
the illegal logs at several ports in Jakarta and other coastal
sites along the Java coast.

Achmad said that the insufficient number of high-speed boats
was not only a problem in the capital.

"In eastern Indonesia, it's even worse because there has not
been a single sea patrol in the last eight years," he said.

Achmad said the purchase of the new boat from a French
manufacturer was expected to help police catch more criminals and
reduce the number of crimes committed at sea.

Before the purchase of the 15-meter-long boat, Achmad said,
the police only had nine 28-meter high-speed patrol boats which
had a maximum speed of 26 knots.

The new boat has a maximum speed of 40 knots and a cruising
speed of 32 knots.

Water Police chief Brig. Gen. Mudji Santoso said during the
ceremony, which was also attended by National Police Chief Gen.
Bimantoro that the new boat had been purchased for US$1.8 million
plus another US$1.1 million for spare parts.

Mudji said that the funds used to purchase the boat had been
taken from foreign exchange reserves.

Police actually purchased five similar boats but two of the
boats would be handed over to the Riau Water Police and the other
two would be operated by the East Kalimantan Water Police.

Mudji said the four boats would be operated in the two areas
due to the high number of crimes committed at sea in these
regions.

"Besides, those areas are close to the borders of neighboring
countries. (Those countries) operate many patrol boats in their
regions. It's embarrassing that we don't have enough boats in our
area," Mudji said.(jaw)