Police seize one ton of heroin near Medan

Police seize one ton of heroin near Medan

Apriadi Gunawan, The Jakarta Post, Medan

Greater Medan Police officers confiscated nearly 1 ton of heroin
on Tuesday in one of the country's largest drug hauls ever.

The heroin was recovered from the houses of three men in Dusun
XII Bandar Khalifah, Deli Serdang regency.

Police detectives' chief Adj. Comr. Maruli Siahaan said the
raid on the houses in the early hours of Tuesday followed the
carrying out of surveillance in the housing complex over three
days.

The three houses are located side by side.

Maruli said the police had detained the suspects, identified
as Halim Siregar, 48, Ngatimin, 33, and Faisal Lubis, 30, and
were questioning 10 neighbors as witnesses in connection with the
finding of the 954.6 kilograms of heroin.

"We broke into the house of Abdul Halim, who then led us to
the other suspects," Maruli explained. Maruli said he suspected
the men had been using the houses to store heroin for quite some
time.

Halim denied the accusation that he stored the heroin, saying
it belonged to a man named Hidayat Efendi, whom he said had
entrusted the drugs to him for four months.

"I don't know who the man is. He entrusted that heroin to me
when he arrived from Aceh. I took him up on his offer as he
promised me Rp 100,000 (US$136) per month," Abdul told reporters.

Aceh is widely known as being home to thousands of hectares of
marijuana plantations.

Halim further said that he knew nothing about, and was not
involved in, the heroin business run by Hidayat.

Following Halim's testimony, the police put Hidayat Efendi's
name on the wanted list.