The trucks, the fuel, the boys and the criminal gangs

Rendi A. Witular, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

A truck carrying a load of diesel fuel was trapped in traffic on Jl. Yos Sudarso in North Jakarta, when a teenager with a plastic bag in his hand crept toward it and slowly opened the fuel tap.

In his side mirror, Sujono, the driver, could see the teenager stealing fuel from the tank, but he just ignored it.

After filling the plastic bag with some two liters of diesel fuel, the teenager went to a nearby shack where he unloaded the fuel into a 400-liter drum.

He then returned to the street to find another fuel truck.

The teenager is Dudi, 17, who earns a living as a tiris -- somebody who steals diesel fuel or gasoline from trucks caught in traffic.

But Dudi, who has been doing the "job" for about a year, denied that what he did could be called stealing.

"I wasn't stealing; the driver didn't even complain," he told The Jakarta Post.

"I just ask them for a liter or two of their leftover diesel fuel, and in my case I only ask for charity," he said.

Dudi and four friends try and fill a 400-liter fuel drum every day. They sell the collected fuel to a broker located at the Plumpang Raya intersection on Jl. Yos Sudarso.

The intersection is daily crowded with passing fuel trucks, heading to and leaving the Plumpang fuel depot, which serves as Jakarta's fuel distribution center.

Dudi, who works from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. along the dusty, hot street, receives Rp 8,000 (about 80 US cents) per day.

One liter of diesel fuel costs Rp 1,150.

When asked about the stealing of fuel, the driver Sujono could only sigh and say that it happened every day along Jl. Yos Sudarso.

"They do not only take the leftover fuel, but also the supply for gas stations. The stealing has been rampant since 1998. If we refuse to give them fuel, they call their friends over to vandalize the truck. It's not worth fighting for the (small) amount that they steal," he said.

Sujono added that the fuel broker who employed Dudi and his friends was an organized group of local hoodlums. The hoodlums threatened the Post when asked about their business.

The police prefer to turn a blind eye to the situation, as is the case with many other rackets run by hoodlums across the city.

Some 200 personnel from the North Jakarta Public Order Office were deployed last week to raid the tiris. During the operation, led by the deputy head of the office, Esmar Marbun, the city employees were confronted by some 20 hoodlums demanding the release of the tiris.

The Public Order officers released three of the 12 tiris they had arrested in order to avoid any violence.

Although the activities of the tiris fall under the category of theft, the remaining nine tiris, including Dudi, were sent by the public order officers to a rehabilitation center in Cipayung, East Jakarta, instead of to the police.