Police seize haul of fake mobile phone batteries

JAKARTA (JP): City police detectives arrested on Saturday the owner of a small factory in Central Jakarta which allegedly produced fake cellular phone batteries.

The suspect, Antoni, 32, was arrested following a raid on Thursday at the four-story factory, which also functioned as a distributing agent for the products, on Jl. Pangeran Jayakarta.

"Police arrested 10 employees of the small factory, including manager Denny Setiawan and technician Dadang Rusandi," city police detectives chief Col. Alex Bambang Riatmodjo said in a media conference at city police headquarters on Sunday.

Denny and Dadang identified Antoni as the owner of the factory, said Alex.

"Police began a hunt for Antoni and arrested him in a hotel in Central Jakarta."

Alex said the police seized 600 fake cellular phone batteries of brands including Nokia, Ericsson, Siemens, Motorola and Samsung, hundreds of labels, three battery-pressing machines and hundreds of battery components.

"Police also confiscated hundreds of unfinished fake cellular phone batteries." Alex added that the factory was in operation when the raid occurred.

Antoni reportedly admitted he did not have an industrial business permit, which is required for the establishment of a factory here.

"He also did not have licenses from cellular phone battery producers to produce the batteries."

The suspect ran the factory since last August with a capacity of 500 cellular phone batteries per day, he said.

"The suspect said that it was his own idea to operate the factory since he is interested in electronics."

Alex said Antoni was a dropout of a school of electrical engineering at a private university in Jakarta.

He said the suspect imported materials and components for the fake cellular phone batteries from China.

"The materials were assembled and packed by the employees, supervised by the suspect, the factory manager Denny and the technician Dadang," he said, quoting from Antoni's statement to police.

Alex said the labels were made by a printing company here on a subcontract basis.

He said the products were distributed to shops located in the popular electronic shopping centers Roxy Mas and ITC Mangga Dua, both in West Jakarta.

"The products were sold for Rp 50,000 each. The shops then sold the products to the public for Rp 100,000," said Alex.

He said the suspect violated articles 81, 82 and 84 of the 1997 Law on Trademarks for producing and distributing fake industrial products. Convictions carry a maximum punishment of seven years in prison.

Alex said Antoni could also be tried for violating Article 382 of the Criminal Code for unfair business practices, which brought losses to the producers of licensed cellular phone batteries. It carries a maximum sentence of one year and four months in jail.

The police official said the suspect also violated articles 24, 25, 26 and 27 of the 1984 Law on Industrial Affairs, since Antoni operated his factory without any industrial business licenses. The police investigation is under way and police have yet to decide on the legal status of the 10 employees. (asa)