Nigerian man arrested with 55 grams of heroin
Abdul Khalik, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Alleged members of an international drug syndicate were arrested on Sunday after trying to sell heroin to a plainclothes police officer outside a shopping center in Central Jakarta.
Emeka Coku, 31, who claims to be a Nigerian, and his Indonesian female companion, identified as Puspi Susanti, 26, were said to be related to a drug syndicate controlled by a convicted big-time drug dealer who runs the operation from his cell in the Cipinang Penitentiary, East Jakarta.
Drugs unit chief at the City Police, Adj. Sr. Comr. Sugeng AR revealed Monday that the arrest of Coku was based on an ongoing investigation into the criminal.
"We tracked the suspects down after we got information from a drug convict in Cipinang penitentiary that one of his members was still active," he said.
The undercover officer later contacted Coku, who was staying at a hotel in Gondangdia, Central Jakarta, to arrange a drug transaction.
At 5:30 p.m., Coku and Puspi met with the undercover officer in front of the Sarinah building while a group of police officers kept them under surveillance.
The police easily apprehended the suspects without much resistance and confiscated 55 grams of heroin from them.
"We are still interrogating him and trying to locate other members. We suspect that several other members are still drug dealing in the capital," said Sugeng.
Police have arrested many foreign nationals involved in drug dealing over the past three years. Many are now on death row.
A joint team from the city police, the immigration office and the Jakarta Narcotics Agency, earlier arrested two Nigerians for allegedly drug dealing, who were identified as Franky Okolha and Abdul Prince, in their rented house in Kota Bambu, Tanah Abang, Central Jakarta, with evidence of 70 grams of heroin.
Laws No. 22/1997 on narcotics and No. 5/1997 on psychotropic substances stipulate that drug offenses carries the death sentence as its maximum punishment.
Police announced earlier that Indonesia had become a target market, similar to those of the Philippines and Thailand, for drugs distributed by international syndicates.
Police said that the syndicate used people from Africa, especially Nigerians, as their agents in new frontiers such as Indonesia.
Sugeng refused to disclose the names of the Nigerians who allegedly controlled the syndicate from Cipinang Penitentiary.
The case, however, highlighted the fact that prisons could not prevent convicted drug dealers from trafficking in drugs, as well as showing to the public that drug syndicates had penetrated deep into the prison.
Last month, convicted actor Ibrahim Solahuddin, 32, better known as Ibra Azhari, was caught with several grams of shabu shabu (crystal methamphetamine) inside his room cell.
The biggest prison trafficking case was revealed in June, 2003, when police discovered that two Africans, Nwaolisa Hansen Anthony and George Obinya, controlled an international drug network worth around Rp 800 million per month from inside the Cipinang Prison.
Although drug trafficking inside the prison continues to occur, no serious integrated measures have been taken by the government so far.