Police kept busy in 2004 with fuel depot raids
Evi Mariani, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The Jakarta Police's regular raids against illegal fuel depots throughout Greater Jakarta have resulted in the confiscation of a total of 451,400 liters of various fuel types in this year alone.
The confiscated fuel comprised 207,200 liters of residue, 124,600 liters of diesel, 82,000 liters of kerosene 13,600 liters of gasoline.
"The result of the operation indicates that a lot of dubious practices are still clouding the "black gold" business in the country.
"Most of the customers of these illegal depots are owners of industrial firms. They can get lower prices at such fuel depots," head of the environment and natural resources department of the Jakarta Police, Adj. Sr. Comr. Ahmad Haydar, said on Friday.
He said some of the buyers claimed that besides offering lower prices, such depots also offered delivery services.
Haydar added that the illegal depots usually got the fuel from leaks in the distribution chain.
Haydar's team discovered in July that at Pertamina's fuel center in Plumpang, North Jakarta, 39 pump meters were broken or adjusted to register inaccurate information on the fuel flow.
The finding lead to the suspicion that some officials at the fuel center, in collusion with tanker truck drivers, had been stealing fuel and selling it to an illegal distribution chain.
Haydar estimated that 100,000 liters of fuel were smuggled out through some of the 1,500 trucks entering the depot every day.
Fuel theft seemingly occurs on both a small and large scale.
It is a common sight near Plumpang to see young men suddenly run to a passing fuel truck and force open the truck lids to fill the plastic bags they are carrying with a small amount of fuel.
However, the larger scale theft is allegedly carried out more discreetly.
"It's not easy to prove that fuel is being stolen at Plumpang. We have to scrutinize thousands of pages of sales reports," Haydar said.
That was the reason, he added, the police could only charge the suspects in the Plumpang case for violating the law on weights and measures, but not on corruption due to the lack of evidence.