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.