Police arrest Balongan LPG thieves after tipoff
Police arrest Balongan LPG thieves after tipoff
Nana Rukmana, The Jakarta Post, Indramayu, West Java
Police arrested four men for stealing liquefied petroleum gas
(LPG) from the Balongan oil refinery of state-owned oil and gas
company PT Pertamina, after another suspect lodged a police
complaint accusing his accomplices of unfair profit sharing.
Two of the four men worked for Pertamina's Distribution Unit
VI, under which the Balongan refinery operated, said Indramayu
Police district chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Eko Hadi Sutedjo on
Wednesday.
He said their illegal operation was uncovered when a fifth
suspect filed a police complaint accusing his four partners of
unfair profit sharing. Eko did not say what drove the suspect to
file the complaint.
"Based on his information we were able to arrest the four
suspects," he said, adding the arrest was made last Saturday.
He refused to disclose the name of the fifth suspect through
whom their illegal operation was uncovered.
Police detectives chief Adj. Comr. Jidin Siagian said that two
of the suspects, Arifin and Herry alias Ceking were both
Pertamina employees of the Balongan refinery's LPG unit.
The other two, Kartono and Wahadi were part-time workers at
the refinery, he said.
Jidin said that police also nabbed Purnomo, a manager at one
of Pertamina's LPG distributors, PT Dirgantara.
The suspects reportedly had been selling the stolen LPG to
Dirgantara, which paid them Rp 7 million (about US$780) for each
truck carrying 10,000 kiloliters of LPG.
Dirgantara then sold the LPG tanks each weighing 15 kilograms
for Rp 35,000 to the public. The company earned an estimated Rp
13 million from each truck loaded with LPG tanks.
It was not immediately clear how much LPG the suspects had
stolen. But they had reportedly been operating since September
last year.
"We are still expanding our investigation because we believe
that more people were involved in this crime," said Eko,
Pertamina spokesman in Indramayu, Suwandi, said the company
would leave the matter entirely to the police.
"If there is a Pertamina employee involved in this case, for
sure that person will face stiff sanctions from the company,"
said Suwandi.
The Balongan refinery was built between 1990 and 1995 with a
refining capacity of 125,000 barrels of oil per day.