Police raid small-time gambling company

JAKARTA (JP): Police have vowed to continue with a campaign against mushrooming lottery sales as part of efforts to rid the capital of gambling practices, an officer said on Saturday.

City police detectives chief Col. Alex Bambang Riatmodjo said one of the measures to eliminate the lottery scheme, locally known as judi buntut, was through raids on gambling dens.

He said the latest raid was conducted late on Friday in East Jakarta, and that 20 people were arrested for their alleged involvement.

Alex admitted that most people arrested in the raids on several places in the capital were mostly small-scale coupon sellers.

"But from them (the small-scale operators), we expect to also get the bigger operators," Alex said, adding that the raids and arrests were aimed at discouraging people from the illegal business.

Regardless of whether they ran small- or large-scale gambling activities, their owners would be charged under Article 303 of the Criminal Code, which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in jail or a fine of Rp 25 million (US$3,700), Alex said.

He said Friday's raid was carried out in a shop at the busy Kampung Melayu bus terminal in East Jakarta. The shop's owner was identified as 34-year-old Fortunatus M. Taming, who was one of the 20 people arrested by the officers.

Police also confiscated 15 calculators, 21 cassettes and Rp 6.9 million cash.

"We closely watched the coupon-selling activities for nearly one month before the raid," he said.

Nineteen of the 20 arrested people were employees at the shop, which started the gambling business one and a half years ago, he said, adding that lottery coupons sold at Fortunatus' shop could only be ordered over the telephone.

Gamblers called and placed bets on two or four numbers, and the winning numbers would be announced the next day by the operators through newspaper advertisements.

The rules of the lottery are similar to those in Singapore, whereby gamblers whose coupons match two numbers, receive 60 times their original bet. If four numbers are matched the payout is 250 times the original bet.

The Singapore lottery has a minimum bet of Rp 1,000, Fortunatus sets a minimum of Rp 500.

Alex said that during the raid, which was launched at 11:30 p.m., Fortunatus and his 19 employees were busy sorting the coupons before drawing the winners at midnight and sending the numbers to the newspapers to be announced. (emf)