Soldiers nabbed for fuel stash

Blontank Poer and Trisna Wahyuni, The Jakarta Post/Surakarta/Mataram

Officers from the Surakarta Police arrested on Thursday night two Indonesian Military (TNI) personnel and charged them with fuel hoarding.

The middle-ranking officers were arrested while buying diesel fuel at a gas station in Surakarta. Police officers confiscated 52 large containers each with a capacity of between 20 liters and 50 liters.

"We caught them in the act. We suspect they planned to resell the diesel fuel to industrial companies at a much higher price," said a police detective who asked not to be named.

The officers, a second lieutenant and a second corporal, are both from the Army Strategic Reserves Command in Mojolaban, Surakarta. At the time of the arrest, both men were wearing civilian clothes.

Surakarta Police chief Sr. Comr. Abdul Madjid confirmed the arrests, but refused to provide any details.

"Please get the details from the arresting officers," Abdul Madjid said.

One of the suspects, identified only as Second Lt. Sm, denied any involvement in fuel hoarding.

"It is a miscommunication. I purchased the fuel for our battalion, not for personal gain," said Sm. He said he often purchased fuel at the station in question, buying about 21,000 liters a week for his battalion.

However, a police source said there were troubling inconsistencies in the suspect's account.

"You cannot purchase that much diesel fuel at a gas station. Normally, if people buy that much fuel they purchase it directly from a Pertamina depot after they secure a delivery order from Pertamina," the source said.

As of Friday afternoon, two pickup trucks carrying the seized diesel fuel were parked at Surakarta Police Headquarters.

The case is the first of its kind to be reported in Central Java, where many residents are struggling to deal with fuel shortages, which have been partly caused by fuel smuggling and hoarding.

Fuel hoarding and smuggling occurs because of price disparities. People can get fuel from gas stations and resell it to industrial companies at a higher price. Similarly, subsidized fuel is smuggled into neighboring countries, where the price of fuel is much higher.

Many observers expect fuel hoarding to soar after the government announced it would raise fuel prices before Idul Fitri.

Separately, the Indonesian Navy intercepted on Tuesday two cargo ships allegedly smuggling out of the country hundreds of tons of rice and sugar, and dozens of cubic meters of timber. The ships were headed to East Timor when stopped by Navy patrol boats in the waters of North Sumba.

"The ships were detained because they did not have legal documents showing that the sugar, rice and timber were acquired through legal transactions," said Col. Marwan Mahmud, the head of the Ampenan naval base in West Nusa Tenggara.