Soldiers nabbed for fuel stash

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.