Syndicate smuggles millions of dollars of RI wood

Syndicate smuggles millions of dollars of RI wood

Moch. N. Kurniawan, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

An illegal Malaysian logging syndicate has smuggled millions of
dollars of endangered wood from Indonesia onto the international
market, an investigation has revealed.

Non-governmental organization Telapak and the Environment
Investigation Agency (EIA) said in their joint investigative
report that ramin wood was smuggled from Sumatra to Pasir Gudang
Port in Johor Baru, Malaysia, to be made into consumer goods like
picture frames and cribs for export to Hong Kong and Shanghai
before final distribution to Europe and the United States.

The report, Profiting from Plunder, was produced from a recent
undercover investigation, which found that around 4,500 cubic
meters of ramin wood was smuggled monthly from Sumatra to Johor
Baru at a buying price of US$20 per cubic meter.

The smugglers could make huge profits, as they could sell
processed ramin wood for $700 per cubic meter, the report says.

"This highly critical, but factual, report was not published
to tarnish Malaysia's image, but to point out some real truths
and ask Malaysia to face up to them as well. We all know Malaysia
is capable of dealing with these issues if there is a genuine
interest in doing so, but to date, this interest has only been
self-serving.

"As Indonesia faces a critical juncture in its history, some
traders and officials in Malaysia are fueling criminality and
raiding Indonesia's forest resources like grave robbers at a
funeral," Telapak director Hapsoro said during the report's
presentation.

Indonesia banned in 2001 the sale of ramin, a blond tropical
hardwood, and registered it under the United Nations Convention
on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) to curb the
illegal trade.

Malaysia is also a signatory of CITES, but has taken exception
to the clause on ramin.

The investigation found that, during a single period last
year, most of the illegal ramin found in Johor had come from the
border area of Jambi and Riau provinces in Sumatra, where illegal
logging of ramin has been rampant in the protected areas of
Berbak National Park and the Kerumatan Wildlife Reserve.

The report said 90 percent of the ramin was smuggled, all of
it stamped "CITES-free" and that an Indonesian port authority
assisted in creating false paper trails, including the bills of
loading, to disguise the origin of the wood.

It also said all the ramin passing through Pasir Gudang Port
was purchased from one man in Sumatra, Jambi Lee, alias "Ramin
King".

Jambi, touted as the No. 3-man in a Chinese-Indonesian
organized crime ring, was a dollar millionaire by the age of 30
and owns mansions in Sumatra, Batam and Singapore.

Pasir Gudang Port, according to the report, belongs to a
network of paper companies controlled by one of Malaysia's
richest men, who is reportedly close to former prime minister
Mahathir Muhammad.

The report said, the businessman was no stranger to
controversial business, having recently purchased a controlling
stake in the much-criticized Bakun dam project in Sarawak.

Like nearby Tanjung Pelapas Port, Pasir Gudang was designed
with the single function of aiding the free movement of goods at
the lowest possible cost and with an absolute minimum of
interference from authorities, the report says, and that it also
had Free Trade Zones where goods could be stored and transshipped
outside of customs control.

The Malaysian Timber Industry Board (MTIB) has an office at
Pasir Gudang, but it had clearly failed to stop the smuggling of
thousands of tons of illicit ramin wood, which had been blatantly
passing through the port for over a year, it said.