Three arrested over 6 kgs marijuana

JAKARTA (JP): Undercover police have arrested three men for allegedly trafficking six kilograms of marijuana with a street value of about Rp 15 million (US$6,147).

City Police Spokesman Lt. Col. E. Aritonang said yesterday that one of the men, Yusri, 21, was shot in the foot by police when he tried to resist arrest.

He was taken to the Kramat Djati police hospital, East Jakarta.

The other men arrested were Irawan, 22, and Syaefulloh, 26, both unemployed and without fixed address.

Aritonang said the arrests took place at Yusri's house on Jl. M. Saidi in Gandaria Utara, South Jakarta, on Wednesday morning, when the men tried to sell the marijuana to undercover officers.

He said police had received reports from Yusri's neighbors that the house, which is used as a traditional medication center, was often used as a meeting place for drug dealers.

Undercover police had made an arrangement to meet the men at the house, he said.

Meanwhile, four other men were arrested yesterday afternoon for alleged involvement in the packaging of hundreds of thousands of Nipam pills, barbiturate-type drugs of which the sale and production have been prohibited since the 1980s.

Aritonang confirmed the arrests but declined to give details of the raid or the names of those arrested, besides saying the raid took place on a warehouse in Pluit, North Jakarta.

Police seized evidence including thousands of Nipam pills stored in 62 boxes the size of 14-inch televisions, two pack-and- seal machines, three boxes of aluminum foil used for packaging, and hundreds of bottles of chemical fluid used for printing on the foil.

Earlier in March, city police had arrested 21 men and seized more than two million Nipam pills during a raid on a drug packaging factory at Taman Kota, Kebon Jeruk, West Jakarta.

Nipam is usually sold in a strip of 10 pills for around Rp 2,500. (cst)