INDONESIAN NARCOTICS AGENCY STRESSES NEED TO SEIZE DRUG ASSETS

Jakarta. The National Narcotics Agency has vowed to enhance its
efforts on a recently launched initiative that involves seizing drug
convicts' assets to prevent them from running drug operations from
behind bars.

Comr. Gen. Gorries Mere, who heads the agency known as the BNN,
pointed out on Monday that the seizure of assets belonging to
convicted drug traffickers and dealers was regulated by the 2009
Anti-Narcotics Law.

"We have started this program just this year, with one or two cases at
first.

By seizing all of their assets, we will at least minimize their
chances of going back to [the narcotics] business.

As long as they are in control of their assets, even if they end up in
jail, they can run their business from behind bars," Gorries told
lawmakers during Monday's hearing with the House of Representatives'
Commission III, which oversees legal affairs.

Gorries's statement comes a month after Jakarta Police Chief Insp.
Gen. Sutarman said that jails nationwide were heaving from the growing
population of drug users, couriers and traffickers.

Going as far as saying that users should be fined rather than jailed
and "drug traffickers should be put to death," Sutarman had said
Indonesia continued to pay a very high price as wardens and police
fail to stop convicts from managing drug businesses in jail via cellphones.

Gorries cited the example of drug convict Kadir Santoso, who
controlled the distribution of drugs from Nusakambangan Penitentiary,
a maximum security prison in Central Java.

He said the facility had actually installed technology to jam phone
signals, which was why Kadir had been kept there -- to prevent him from
communicating with outsiders.

"But then we learned that he had in his possession a small decoder,
which he had installed somewhere on the ceiling of his prison cell. He
could still communicate through a satellite phone. We should have
seized all his assets from the start."

When asked where the seized assets would go, Gorries said that they
would be utilized for the rehabilitation of drug victims, to support
operations against dealers or handed to citizens as a reward for
providing information about drug dealers, couriers and traffickers to
police.

BNN official Tommy Sagiman told lawmakers separately that this year
alone the agency had frozen 80 bank accounts, containing billions of
rupiah, belonging to drug traffickers and dealers.

In the future, Tommy added, BNN planned to also seize cars and houses,
as well as other forms of both movable and immovable assets.

The BNN had said in November that the only way the death penalty for
drug crimes in Indonesia could have a deterrent effect was if
executions were carried out in a speedy manner.

BNN spokesman Sumirat Dwiyanto said just five drug dealers had been
executed in 2008, of the 72 sentenced to death.

The last time the Attorney General's Office ordered executions to be
carried out was in 2008, when 10 inmates were put in front of a firing
squad, including three militants convicted for the 2002 bombings in
Bali.

He added that a court handing down the death penalty was one matter,
but seeing to its actual execution was quite another.

Former acting Attorney General Darmono had said in November that only
one of 101 inmates on death row had now exhausted all available legal
avenues.

Lawmakers on Monday urged the BNN to collaborate with the Customs and
Immigration offices, to strengthen monitoring at airports and seaports.

"Our airports and seaports must really be strengthened," Commission
deputy chairman Azis Syamsuddin said.

Tommy added that one problem that was becoming a major concern was the
growing trend of Indonesian migrant workers in Hong Kong, Macau and
Malaysia being used by international drug syndicates as couriers.

He pointed out that a majority of them were workers who had developed
serious problems with their former employers.

"They are fired by their employers. They have no job. So they are
recruited by these drug syndicates. They are paid about US$2,500 for
each kilogram of drugs they bring in a trip," Tommy said.

"To date, more than 350 [Indonesian] migrant workers have been
arrested by foreign authorities for such crimes.

"Our migrant workers are easily persuaded by such small sums of money
even though the risk is severe.

"On the other hand, our authorities at airports are easily cheated as
well."

But Manpower Minister Muhaimin Iskandar said on Monday that he had yet
to receive a single complaint over migrant workers being used as
couriers by drug syndicates.

"As far as I know, we have more than 300 workers in Malaysian jails
waiting for trial. But they are actually not workers, but Acehnese
residents of that country," Muhaimin said.

Gorries said Indonesia remained an extremely lucrative market for
massive international drug syndicates.

"Our warnings to foreign governments, whose citizens bring drugs to
Indonesia, like Iran and Malaysia, are more than enough. We have
issued warnings about the high punishments for drug dealers, but it
still hasn't brought trafficking to a halt.

This is because of the money. In Iran, Rp 50 million will get you a
kilo of crystal methamphetamine. Here the same kilo is worth as much
as Rp 2 billion," Gorries said.

In a related development, Jakarta Narcotics Police on Monday announced
the arrests of two Malaysian nationals believed to be couriers of
crystal meth at two separate hotels in Jakarta.

Police seized a total of five kilograms of the drug from both
men.

The drugs were smuggled into the country in plastic pipes that were
installed in suitcases, officers said.