Officials suspect boar meat was dumped by suppliers

Officials suspect boar meat was dumped by suppliers

JAKARTA (JP): Officials from the City Animal Husbandry Agency
said on Tuesday they suspected the nearly one ton of wild boar
meat found in a sewer in Kemayoran, Central Jakarta, on Sunday
was dumped by distributors following a significant drop in demand
for the meat.

Agency head Edi Setiarto and senior staffer Raidjin Arsyad
said the illegal distributors, who obtained the boar meat from
Bengkulu, Sumatra, failed to find vendors willing to purchase the
meat following news reports about the sale of beef mixed with
boar meat in markets across the capital.

They said that as a result of the media coverage, the
distributors decided to dump the meat, which was discovered by a
Kemayoran resident on Sunday morning.

"Since the stock of boar meat has been getting larger and
larger and the suppliers still couldn't find any traders to
resell the meat, they simply dumped it," Edi said.

Bengkulu has become a popular spot for hunters, with wild
boars their favorite targets. The discovery of the discarded boar
meat in Kemayoran has worried many people, particularly Muslims,
because it was reported several days earlier that some vendors in
the capital were mixing beef with boar meat and selling it at
relatively cheap prices.

According to Raidjin, the illegal distributors, believed to be
from Bengkulu, are suspected to have sold the meat in Jelambar
market in West Jakarta.

"The stock usually arrived between 5 p.m. and 7 p.m. by pickup
trucks at Jelambar before being distributed later in the Grogol
and Senen markets," he said.

Based on his team's preliminary investigation, Raidjin said
vendors in the three markets no longer wanted to purchase the
boar meat.

"The situation apparently forced these illegal suppliers to
abandon their stock," he added.

Each delivery, usually made twice of three times a week, could
supply the capital with some one to 1.5 tons of wild boar meat.

The findings were based in part on the confessions of several
meat vendors in Tebet, South Jakarta, who were arrested late last
month for selling 740 kilograms of wild boar meat.

During the interrogation, the vendors said they treated the
boar meat in an attempt to fool customers who thought they were
purchasing beef, which has a reddish color and less fat than the
boar meat.

"The meat was initially soaked in vanilla and calamondin to
eliminate the odor of the wild boars, and later dipped into a
pool of cow's blood," Joko Wijayanto, one of the vendors, was
quoted by Raidjin as saying.

He said the boar meat was then sold for Rp 14,000 per
kilogram, much cheaper than the Rp 26,000 per kilogram charged
for real beef.

"Buyers would realize they had been tricked once they cooked
the wild boar meat, which released its original smell," said
Raidjin.

The official quoted the suspects as saying the fake beef was
sold in numerous markets across the capital, including Pasar
Minggu, Kebayoran Lama and Ciputat, all in South Jakarta, Tanjung
Priok in North Jakarta, and Cikokol, Pamulang, Ciputat and Pasar
Kemis in Tangerang.

He said he had purchased some of the fake beef in Pasar
Minggu, which led him to investigate the source of the cheap
meat.

According to Edi, his office would destroy the boar meat
confiscated from the traders and found in Kemayoran when the
police no longer needed it for their investigation.

Separately, the secretary of the Jakarta chapter of the
Indonesian Ulemas Council, Hamdan Rasyid, said Kelingkit
residents informed his office the police in Tebet had freed one
of the vendors of the boar meat in return for a Rp 5 million
bribe.

"I received the report three days ago from residents of
Kelingkit," Hamdan said.

When asked for confirmation, Tebet Police chief of detectives
First Insp. Supangat dismissed the allegation, saying the City
Animal Husbandry Agency had not involved Tebet Police officers in
its operation.

"I know nothing about the agency's raid and we never arrested
any wild boar vendors," he said. (lup/07)