The Soekarno-Hatta Airport police submitted five police reports that allegedly indicate seven suspects. Five of them (detainees) have been named suspects.
Jakarta (ANTARA) - Jakarta Metropolitan Police have arrested five Indian nationals on charges of enlisting a quarantine mafia service to enter Indonesia without having to undergo a quarantine.

"The Soekarno-Hatta Airport police submitted five police reports that allegedly indicate seven suspects. Five of them (the detainees) have been named suspects," chief of the public relations bureau of the Jakarta Metropolitan Police, Senior Commissioner Yusri Yunus, said during a press conference at Soekarno-Hatta Airport on Wednesday.

The five Indian citizens have been identified by their initials as SR (35), CM (40), KM (36), PN (47), and SD (35). Police and immigration authorities are still searching for the two other Indians, Yunus said.

The modus operandi of the quarantine mafia is not very different from that disclosed by Jakarta Metropolitan Police investigators earlier, he added.

Members of the syndicates accompany the people who have signed up for their service once they arrive in Indonesia and take care of all formalities, starting from filling forms to departing to the quarantine site, he informed.

Related news: Health Ministry studies potential virus mutation from Indian arrivals

At the beginning, the quarantine mafia put the data of foreign nationals into the database of the Quarantine Task Force until they are ready to depart for the hotel designated as their quarantine site, Yunus said.

By the time the Quarantine Task Force arrives to transport the foreign nationals to the quarantine site, the mafia manage to take them away in a car or taxi, he added.

Early on Sunday (April 25, 2021), immigration authorities at Soekarno-Hatta Airport deported 32 Indians who were denied entry into Indonesia on Friday (April 23, 2021) on account of a spike in COVID-19 cases in the South Asian country.

They had arrived at the airport by Emirates Airline flight EK356.

The 32 Indian nationals were deported at 00.40 a.m. local time on Sunday via a Dubai-bound Emirates Airlines flight, head of the information and communication technology section of the Soekarno-Hatta Immigration Office, Sam Fernando, said in a written statement released on Sunday.

In response to a recent surge in COVID-19 cases in India, the Indonesian government has suspended the granting of visiting visas and limited stay visas for Indian nationals.

It said it has imposed a temporary ban on flights from India as a precautionary measure against COVID-19 transmission.

Related news: Four of nine Indians in Yogyakarta test positive for COVID-19



Translator: Fianda Sjofjan R/Suharto
Editor: Rahmad Nasution
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