Over four months after slipping away from a prison guard, a Bali fraudster is still on the run.
The search has been on for Class II B Gianyar prisoner I Putu Suciawan, 33, but authorities have been unable to locate him since he fled on Sept. 7, 2017.
Suciawan had been serving time for a fraud conviction at the district jail in Gianyar. So far, he had done about a year of his three-and-a-half-year sentence.
Head of Gianyar Corrections, Made Astra said that a joint team of prison guards and police officers are still hunting for Suciawan, but there’s no sign of the Singaraja man.
“Yes, there’s been no progress. But the pursuit is still being conducted,” Astra said, as quoted by Bali Post.
He added that they’ve been in touch with prisons in Lombok and Java, in case Suciawan has fled Bali, either to Lombok in the east and Java in the west.
“Coordination with officers outside of Bali has already been done, including the dissemination of wanted list images, but he has not been detected yet.”
Physical attributes of Suciawan include a height of 162 centimeters, weight of 65 kilograms, an oval-shaped face with curly hair. The fugitive has a tattoo on his left arm and his index and middle fingers cannot move, Astra said.
Gianyar Police’s Criminal Investigation Unit Chief, Marzel Doni, echoed Astra, saying that there have been no developments in the manhunt.
“Our officers are still in the field. Please pray that he can be quickly caught,” Doni said.
He also said it’s not even clear if Suciawan is still in Bali or not.
“There has been no report. Officers are posted at the ports and other borders are on alert,” he added.
Suciawan escaped from custody on Sept. 7, 2017 when he got permission along with another inmate to go to Denpasar for the purpose of buying musical instruments for the correction facility, escorted by a prison guard.
On the way back to the prison after buying the instruments, they did not return directly, but instead stopped in Ubud at the request of Suciawan who said he wanted to meet his friend. While the prison guard and the inmate waited in the car, Suciawan never returned.
Astawa said Suciawan had been permitted to go out from the prison because they had trusted he wouldn’t run away.
Clearly, the trust turned out to be misplaced.
“It is our fault. We were overconfident, we realize we were wrong to trust this person. We admit that we were wrong,” Astawa previously said, when the man first escaped.
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