Sex toys, pornography top list of seized items

Sex toys, pornography top list of seized items

Rendi A. Witular, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Sex toys and pornography dominated the list of goods
confiscated by the directorate of customs and excise in the first
quarter of the year.

The directorate's first-quarter performance report, which was
made available to The Jakarta Post over the weekend, indicated
that the agency's offices throughout the country managed to foil
a total of 113 violations of export-import regulations during the
period, including smuggling attempts, underinvoicing and illegal
goods shipment.

Of the 113 violations, the import of sex toys, pornographic
video cassette discs (VCDs), digital video discs (DVDs) and
pornographic magazines, which are all considered illegal in the
country, ranked first on the list, with 46 cases.

Next on the list was the import of home appliances and
electronic goods, with 19 cases, followed by the illegal export
of natural resource commodities, such as coral and logs, with 11
cases.

One major case mentioned in the quarterly report is the
attempted smuggling of logs worth Rp 5 billion, which was foiled
by the customs office in Balikpapan, East Kalimantan on March 12.

The report, however, did not mention the smuggling of
assembled microlight airplane from Germany through Tanjung Priok
port on Feb. 19. The customs office foiled the smuggling,
confiscated the aircraft and proudly invited the media to take
photos of them.

No custom official was available over the weekend to explain
why that smuggling case was not mentioned in the quarterly
report, or where the confiscated aircraft is now.

The report only mentioned one case of textile smuggling, which
the office managed to foil.

This is despite the fact that the Indonesian Textile
Association warned early this year that about 1,400 vessels from
Singapore and Hong Kong would arrive in Indonesia in February and
March to smuggle textile products into the country illegally.

Another strange thing was that, according to the report, the
customs offices in Tanjung Balai Karimun, Riau, and Palembang,
South Sumatra -- which are notorious as favored gateways for
smugglers to bring their goods into the country -- made no goods
seizures at all during the period. Are the ports now free from
smugglers?

Commenting on the report, chairman of the National Economic
Recovery Committee (KPEN) Sofyan Wanandi called on the office to
focus more on strategic commodities than petty smuggling of goods
such as pornography and sex toys.

"In cracking down on smuggling, they should concentrate on the
smuggling of strategic commodities that have a direct impact on
the Indonesian economy such as rice or sugar," he said.