Petty crooks share their views on life

JAKARTA (JP): "Kenedy", a bird vendor, has been cheating to make a living for the past decade.

He runs the business with a group of four people on public vehicles, at gas stations or at recreational sites all over the city, offering beautiful singing birds. Once in a while, they travel outside the capital.

The fact is, the birds cannot sing at all.

The Pramuka, East Jakarta, bird market-based group know well how to do their business. They will get on a public bus and act as if they do not know each other.

One of the group member holds a bird carefully placed in a paper bag, while another one sitting near him will blow a special little tool in his mouth that could produce melodious sounds like a singing bird.

Another member will then pretend to admire the "singing" bird and ask several questions about how the owner could train the bird to sing so beautifully.

An interested passenger usually believes what he or she hears and dares to buy the bird at a high price.

The group immediately leaves the vehicle before the buyer realizes that the bird cannot sing at all.

"I buy one bird at only Rp 5,000, but if we are lucky, we can sell it at Rp 300,000 up to Rp 1 million," Kenedy, 40, told The Jakarta Post on Saturday.

"We share the money according to the members' role. I can earn at least Rp 100,000 a day," Kenedy, the group leader, said.

Kenedy said he had tried different jobs before he decided to get into the business nine years ago.

He said he used to sell clothes in Maumere, West Nusa Tenggara. When it went bankrupt, he left for Jakarta. He claimed to have worked as a basket ball trainer at East Jakarta youth center for a short period of time before he sold shoes and some other different items. All did not go well and he decided to become a petty criminal.

"Now, I have saved up some money to at least run a warung (shop) after leaving the bird selling later," he said.

He said he wanted to start a new life.

"I don't think I should feed my family by cheating others every day," he said.

"Like other human beings, criminals also have a heart. They have a family to feed and actually they want to lead a normal life. They make their own way in life through unlawful means because they have no choice," Kenedy said.

"Memet", a motorbike thief whose body is covered with tattoos has a different story. He said, although he wanted a normal life, being a criminal was not too burdensome for him.

"I will stop being a hoodlum if the city administration gives me a good job with an adequate salary," he said.

The bad-tempered man was once worked as a driver, but was dismissed as he physically fought with his boss.

As a professional thief, he always operates at motorbike parking lanes along the street or at office or school parking areas and could steal up to 11 motorbikes a month.

Memet, 37, has been in jail 10 times and is notorious among prisoners and wardens at the Cipinang jail in the city. He boasted that most of police officers and prosecutors and judges in East Jakarta know him.

He was not afraid of being caught as he claimed that he could bribe the law enforcers to get a light sentence of just a few months.

"Just Rp 2 million," he said when asked how much the bribe was.

Memet said he began to specialize in motorbike theft after several colleagues of his former bank robber gang were shot dead by the police.

He has no problem selling the stolen motorbike as there is an agent who will then sell them as ojek (motorbike taxi) in some villages in West Java province.

Commenting on the Governor Sutiyoso's declaration of war against thugs, he just laughed.

"The governor's declaration of war against thugs is just a cheap bluff to us. We are never scared," Memet said.

Kenedy believed that the presence of hoodlums was like prostitution, gambling or murder which would never be stamped out.

The city administration has launched an operation against some 1,300 hoodlums who are spread in the city's five mayoralties, deploying at least 800 police officers and 1,900 civilian police assistants (Banpol).

Experts doubted the effectiveness of such an operation targeted at hoodlums, saying that certain groups still used the hoodlums to protect their interests.

"Such an operation will be effective for a certain period of time. But in the future, they will emerge again as the root of the problem is poverty," criminologist Adrianus Meliala of the University of Indonesia said. (01)