Police arrest an Air Force office in counterfeit ring
Evi Mariani, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Jakarta Police officers have arrested an Air Force officer and three civilians for trading in counterfeit U.S. dollar bank notes and seized the equivalent of US$246,000.
"The suspects are now in detention at the city police headquarters. They were arrested on Oct. 8 and charged with violating Article 245 of the Criminal Code on distributing counterfeit banknotes," the city police detectives chief Sr. Comr. Mathius Salempang announced during a press conference on Thursday.
The crime carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison.
The police said that Antonius Sujarwo, 53, an officer at the training center at Halim Perdanakusumah Air Force base and Eddy Purnomo, 46, possessed the counterfeit dollar banknotes. While Maman, 46 and Anton Sanjaya, 51, were suspected as dealers of the counterfeit money.
The police received a tip-off from residents, who said that there were counterfeit dollar banknotes being traded in Kebon Nanas, East Jakarta. They later managed to arrest Maman and Anton while they were in the act of exchanging the notes.
The two suspects told the police that they sold each US$100 dollar banknote for just Rp 100,000 (US$10.95). The current exchange rate for US$1 as of Thursday was at Rp 9,135.
They also informed the police of the whereabouts of Eddy and Antonius. The police later arrested them.
From the four suspects, the police confiscated 2,460 copies of the US$100 notes.
The counterfeit banknotes displayed at the police headquarters were in different tones of black tint. Some of them looked similar to the real ones, but others looked slightly gray.
However, if the banknote was touched, it had a similar texture as the real money and even that new dollar smell.
"For people not familiar with U.S. dollar banknotes, they could have believed that the money was real," the police said.
Salempang said that detectives were still pursuing other, more senior, members of the syndicate who had helped the four suspects manufacture the counterfeit money.
Earlier, the police explained that counterfeit money syndicates had a similar modus operandi as drug syndicates. They had a long chain of syndicate members, who only knew their immediate superior and not other members of the syndicate.
Frequently, the police lose track at the middle of the chain and seldom arrest the top members of such vice syndicates.