Police study insider roles in ticket scam

JAKARTA (JP): City Police are trying to determine how a recent ticket scam at Merpati Nusantara Airlines, which has inflicted Rp 15.6 million (US$6,000) in losses to the state-run airline, developed.

Spokesman Lt. Col. E. Aritonang said Thursday that an arrested suspect in the case could not have operated alone without the help of airline staff in letting passengers board planes without proper tickets.

"We are still investigating how passengers carrying fake tickets could smoothly pass by the check-in counter and board the plane without any difficulty," Aritonang said.

The suspect, identified only as TR, 31, was nabbed by the airline's security officers at a Merpati district office on Tuesday for allegedly using and selling counterfeit tickets, said Merpati spokesman Tondo Widodo in a release.

TR, identified by Merpati as a travel agency director in Lombok, West Nusa Tenggara, confessed he ran the illegal business alone, said Tondo.

"Based on our investigation, there's no evidence that any of our staff played a role in the case," Tondo said.

According to Merpati, the suspect, who is now being held at City Police Headquarters for further questioning, had operated his business for 10 months since June last year.

It is believed TR illegally extended routes of tickets he purchased, Tondo said.

"He also changed passengers' status, such as from children to adults," he said.

By doing so, the suspect could collect extra money from the return tickets he sold to his customers which were much lower in price than official prices.

Aritonang said the suspect confessed he often escorted the passengers who bought the tickets from him, from the check-in counter to the boarding gate.

"There's probably one or more insiders involved in the scam. Not in the changing of routes, but in letting passengers with illegal tickets board the planes," Aritonang said.

Tondo revealed that TR's favorite routes were from Jakarta to Medan, Denpasar, Ujungpandang, Pontianak and Jayapura.

A one-way ticket costs between Rp 300,000 and Rp 600,000 each, according to the official Merpati rate list.

It was unclear how much TR offered the counterfeit tickets for.

According to Aritonang, a Merpati ticketing official who was questioned earlier last week said routes attached to the tickets seized from TR were different from when they were purchased at the Merpati office.

The airline's management learned of the case after finding that the number of passengers boarding Merpati planes in Jakarta did not match the number of tickets sold, Aritonang said. (04/cst)