A “conventional” motorbike taxi driver (meaning one not working for a ride-hailing app) was arrested on Saturday after stealing a phone from one of his passengers in Canggu, Bali.
Karangasem man I Komang Punduh, 26, was arrested by officers from Bali Police’s Criminal Investigation Unit at his home in Munti Gunung on Saturday, reports NusaBali.
Punduh had been driving British tourist GLP, 22, on Jl. Raya Batu Bolong to the Castaway Hostel at around 11:30pm on Thursday. During the ride, the driver asked to see Google Maps on the woman’s phone to “check the route.”
But when it came time to drop her off, the ojek driver did not hand the Samsung A7 Edge phone back to his passenger and instead sped off on his Yamaha NMax motorbike, fleeing the scene.
GLP then immediately filed a report with the North Kuta Police station, according to police.
“The victim’s report was immediately followed up and coordinated with the Bali Police Criminal Investigation Unit to expose the perpetrator of the theft. In addition, the police officers also went to the scene to examine an umber of witnesses and recording surveillance cameras that were around,” NusaBali quoted an anonymous police source as saying.
The process of tracking Punduh was a bit involved, the source said.
Police intel officers tracked the phone down to Jl. Legian in Kuta, where they found local man I Made Kapsul with it at a salon. Kapsul told officers he purchased the phone from I Gede Pratama for IDR2.8 million (US$191).
From Pratama, police were able to hunt Punduh back to his place of residence in Karangasem.
Upon arrest, once going in for police questioning, Punduh admitted to taking the phone and says he had done the same action a total of three times in the past month.
Bali Police spokesman Hengky Widjaja separately confirmed the arrest and told NusaBali that police are still conducting an investigation to understand Punduh’s network.
“We are still investigating, including the network handling the cell phone in that mode,” he said.
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