Bangkalan police in East Java seize one kg crystal meth

Bangkalan, E Java (ANTARA) - Police officers in Bangkalan, East Java, foiled a drug trafficker's attempt to send one kilogram of crystal methamphetamine to the district from Pontianak City in West Kalimantan Province, a cop stated.

The drug trafficking operation could be thwarted owing to a tip-off on a crystal meth package that the cops received from the public, Bangkalan Police Chief Adjunct Sen. Coms. Febri Isman Jaya remarked.

The drug trafficker delivered the package to Bangkalan District through a courier service, he noted here, Thursday, adding that the crystal meth, weighing one kilogram, was packed inside 10 plastic bags.

To deceive the courier service's workers regarding the package's contents, the sender concealed the crystal meth in each of the 10 plastic bags by mixing it with three sachets of coffee and a bunch of sewing thread.

During the police's raid, a drug courier, identified as B, 39, was arrested while he was taking the package at the courier service. B is the resident of Ketapang Jaya neighborhood of Sampang District, East Java.

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"The suspect was arrested on December 3," Jaya remarked, adding that the suspect told police investigators that he had been involved thrice in a similar drug trafficking operation.

B revealed that he worked with his friend in Pontianak, identified as F, who promised to pay him Rp8 million, while the package would be delivered to A in Socah Sub-district, Bangkalan District, Jaya stated.

The Bangkalan police officers are currently hunting down F and A, he remarked.

Domestic and transnational drug dealers perceive Indonesia as a potential market due to its vast population and millions of drug users.

The value of drug trade in the country is estimated to have reached nearly Rp66 trillion, with the number of drug trafficking cases continuing to increase.

A joint survey conducted by the National Narcotics Agency (BNN) and the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) in 2019 pegged the number of drug users in Indonesia at over 3.4 million.

The survey conducted in 34 provinces indicated that about 180 out of every 10 thousand Indonesians in the age group of 15 to 64 years were addicted to drugs.

The users of crystal methamphetamine, narcotics, marijuana, and other types of addictive drugs can belong to any community and socioeconomic and cultural background.