Indonesia arrests 2 foreigners for smuggling cocaine to Bali
A Brazilian man and a South African woman were arrested separately on July 13 after customs officers at Bali's international airport saw suspicious items in the man's luggage and the woman's underwear on X-ray scans.
Indonesia has extremely strict drug laws, and convicted smugglers are sometimes executed by firing squad.
The 25-year-old Brazilian man, who police identified by his initials as YB, was arrested with 3,086.36 grams (6.8 pounds) of cocaine in the lining of his suitcase and backpack shortly after he arrived at the airport from Dubai, said Made Sinar Subawa, head of the Eradication Division at Bali's Narcotic Agency.
The same day, customs officers caught a 32-year-old South African woman, identified as LN, and seized 990.83 grams (2.1 pounds) of cocaine she in her underwear, Subawa said.
During interrogation, YB said that he was promised 400 million rupiah ($2,450) to hand the cocaine he obtained in Brasilia to a man he called as Tio Paulo, while LN expected to get 25 million rupiah ($1,500) after deliver the drugs to someone she identified as Cindy, according to Subawa.
Subawa said a police operation failed to catch the two people named by the suspects, whom police believee are low-level distributors.
Authorities presented the suspects wearing orange prison uniforms and masks, with their hands handcuffed, at a news conference in Denpasar, the capital, along with the cocaine they were found with.
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime says Indonesia is a major drug-smuggling hub despite having some of the strictest drug laws in the world, in part because international drug syndicates target its young population.
The Denpasar District Court later Thursday is set to sentence two other groups of foreigners on drug charges. Verdicts for an Argentine woman and a British man who were accused of smuggling cocaine onto the island, and for drug offense against a group of three British nationals, including a woman, are expected to be read out separately at the same court.
About 530 people are on death row in Indonesia, mostly for drug-related crimes, including 96 foreigners, the Ministry of Immigration and Corrections' data showed. Indonesia's last executions, of a citizen and three foreigners, were carried out in July 2016.
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Countries like the US where sex offenders driving the demand for this crime often live — and the online platforms, payment processors and money transfer services that inadvertently enable it — must take action. This comes at a timely moment for US policymakers, who have been increasingly attentive to the crisis of children being exploited online. It is time for US Congress to pass the STOP CSAM Act (H.R.3921 and S.1829). Momentum is building for this legislation, which was examined at a March hearing before the US Senate Judiciary Committee and advanced on a bipartisan basis by that committee on June 12 in a unanimous vote of 22-0. If enacted, this bill would allow victims to seek legal recourse against online platforms that promote or aid and abet their exploitation — a significant step toward the goal of protecting children from sexual abuse and exploitation online. 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I experienced a glimpse of this sustained hope as I was recognized by the US Department of State as a Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report Hero last year — the highest honor given by the US government for anti-trafficking leadership around the world. Reflecting on the last two decades of this work, I have undoubtedly witnessed humanity's darkest side. Yet, my team and I have also experienced deep generosity and care from those working to combat this crime — and we are fueled by our experience that change is possible.
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But despite this progress and sustained commitment from governments, this particular form of technology-facilitated trafficking continues to ravage communities in the Philippines and around the world. It has become clear to me that we cannot rely solely on the efforts of individual governments or bilateral partnerships to adequately address the tidal wave of violence against children on the internet. It's simply not enough. 'Technology companies play a pivotal role in protecting victims and vulnerable individuals from being exploited through the use of their online platforms and must be part of the solution to combat human trafficking,' according to the 2024 TIP Report. And because many of the world's largest and most influential technology companies are based in the United States, the US Congress must pass laws to appropriately incentivize this influential sector to be a part of the answer to this epidemic. Countries like the US where sex offenders driving the demand for this crime often live — and the online platforms, payment processors and money transfer services that inadvertently enable it — must take action. This comes at a timely moment for US policymakers, who have been increasingly attentive to the crisis of children being exploited online. It is time for US Congress to pass the STOP CSAM Act (H.R.3921 and S.1829). Momentum is building for this legislation, which was examined at a March hearing before the US Senate Judiciary Committee and advanced on a bipartisan basis by that committee on June 12 in a unanimous vote of 22-0. If enacted, this bill would allow victims to seek legal recourse against online platforms that promote or aid and abet their exploitation — a significant step toward the goal of protecting children from sexual abuse and exploitation online. 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I experienced a glimpse of this sustained hope as I was recognized by the US Department of State as a Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report Hero last year — the highest honor given by the US government for anti-trafficking leadership around the world. Reflecting on the last two decades of this work, I have undoubtedly witnessed humanity's darkest side. Yet, my team and I have also experienced deep generosity and care from those working to combat this crime — and we are fueled by our experience that change is possible.
