According to Bandarlampung City Police Chief Senior Commissioner Abdul Waras, the suspects, only identified as AW, S, F, ST, and MF, might belong to an inter-provincial syndicate.
The drug ring could be uncovered after local cops received a tip-off about a possible drug trafficking operation in Bandarlampung City's Kedaton neighborhood area on January 31, 2024, he revealed here on Tuesday.
"Based on the tip-off, the cops then launched a surveillance operation and investigation that resulted in the arrest of F," he remarked, adding that following F's arrest, the police apprehended S, MF, AW, and ST.
Waras said F had informed police investigators that S, who was arrested at a rented house in Palmerah Sub-district, West Jakarta, on February 5, was his supplier.
S also admitted that he delivered one thousand ecstasy pills to Mojokerto, East Java, by using a courier service. The drug package was then received by MF, he stated.
The cops arrested MF shortly after getting the package. They also found 7,370 ecstasy pills, 93.36 grams of ecstasy powder, 825.44 grams of methamphetamine, and a digital weighing scale at his rented house.
Meanwhile, AW and ST were apprehended in Bandarlampung City along with 37 grams of methamphetamine that they had obtained from their networks in the provinces of Riau and East Java, he remarked.
ANTARA reported earlier that while the government has pinned its hopes on the youth to help Indonesia beat the fierce competition among nations in the current era of disruption, the nation's youth are wrangling with a grave problem: drug abuse and addiction.
This challenging reality was confirmed by the joint survey of the National Narcotics Agency (BNN) and the Indonesian Institute of Sciences in 2019, which revealed that there were over 3.4 million drug users in Indonesia.
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 government is well aware of this alarming threat of drug abuse and addiction. Since his first leadership term, President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) has been reminding the nation of the grave impacts of drug consumption on Indonesia.
Data shows that users of crystal methamphetamine, narcotics, marijuana, and other types of addictive drugs come from different communities and socio-economic and cultural backgrounds.
Drug users and dealers even include university students, as has been observed in several cases in Jakarta, East Java, and North Sumatra.
In July 2020, for instance, the South Jakarta Metropolitan Police arrested seven members of a drug syndicate for selling dried cannabis to university students in the West and South Jakarta areas over the course of a year.
The suspects belonged to a university network of drug syndicates that sold the illicit drugs to students directly and through an online service.
Related news: BNN raids several rented houses, apartment units in Yogyakarta
Related news: Trend of community increasingly using herbal veterinary drugs: BRIN
Translator: Agus WS, Rahmad Nasution
Editor: Anton Santoso
Copyright © ANTARA 2024
