Indonesia drugs crackdown nets 285 including Australian
Indonesia is a major hub for drug trafficking in South-East Asia despite its strict drug laws, with convicted smugglers sometimes executed by firing squad.
National Narcotic Agency head Marthinus Hukom said the crackdown, between April and June across 20 provinces, also uncovered money laundering schemes by two drug syndicates and confiscated assets worth more than 26 billion rupiah (about $A2.3 million).
Thirty-six of the suspects, including 21 women, were paraded — handcuffed in their orange prison uniforms — in front of media, along with confiscated drugs.
Hukom said the women arrested were mostly housewives.
'I call on Indonesian women to be more vigilant in establishing friendships both in the real world and in cyberspace,' he said at a joint press conference with officials from the Security Affairs Ministry and Customs office which took part in the operation.
Agency deputy Budi Wibowo said authorities seized 683,885g of crystal meth, marijuana, ecstasy, THC, hashish and amphetamines — adding this helped stop them falling into the hands of 'more than 1.3 million people'.
Wibowo also said drug syndicates have used various methods to distribute narcotics to users via land and sea transportation or mail services.
The seven foreigners were a US citizen, two Kazakhs, two Malaysians, an Indian and an Australian, Wibowo said.
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime says Indonesia is a major drug-smuggling hub in part because international drug syndicates target its young population.
In a separate operation, authorities in the province of Riau Island in May exposed two cases of drug smuggling in its waters and seized 2.7 tonnes of crystal methamphetamine and 1.2 tonnes of ketamine, Hukom said on Monday.
In 2023, authorities uncovered more than 52,000 drug cases and confiscated 6.2 tonnes of crystal meth, 1.1 tonnes of marijuana and other types of synthetic narcotics, Mohammad Hasan of the Ministry of Security Affairs said.
Hasan said the number increased in 2024 with more than 56,000 cases in which 7.5 tonnes of crystal meth and 3.3 tonnes of marijuana was confiscated.
Authorities had arrested a total of 27,357 drug suspects by November 2024, he said.
Early this month, three British citizens accused of smuggling nearly 1kg of cocaine into Indonesia were charged on the tourist island of Bali.
They face the death penalty if convicted under the country's strict drug laws.
About 530 people, including 96 foreigners, are on death row in Indonesia, mostly for drug-related crimes, Ministry of Immigration and Corrections data showed.
Indonesia's last executions, of an Indonesian and three foreigners, were carried out in July 2016.
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