A man arrested last week for selling drugs to tourists in Bali was reportedly released by police because the drugs turned out to be fake.
Deta, 50, widely known as Limbad, had been in police holding cells since Tuesday, when police found him with two packets of white powder weighing 0.68 grams, five white tablets, 10 packets of dried leaves and seeds weighing 24.96 grams, and one black bundled package weighing 3.49 grams, according to Merdeka.
However, I Gede Ganefo of Denpasar Police’s Narcotics Unit told Merdeka that upon further examination of the “drugs,” police realized that they were not the real deal.
“It was medication and regular leaves made to appear as if drugs were being sold to foreigners,” Ganefo said on Sunday, as quoted by Merdeka.
Ganefo explained that the marijuana-like substance was made from a dried flower mixed with commercial bird food (gross!) and sold for Rp 100,000 per packet.
Meanwhile, the so-called cocaine was powder made from headache tablets that had been ground up and packed in plastic. He would sell a package of that for Rp 100,000-200,000.
As if that weren’t enough, the “ecstasy” was really children’s pain tablets sold at Rp 5,000 (foreigners probably thought they were getting a bargain!).
Limbad, who works as an ojek driver, reportedly confessed to being a “fake drug trader” for the past year.
“We checked in his house and found all the stuff was not drugs. He was specifically selling to foreigners,” Ganefo said.
Because of this lack of drug evidence, Ganefo says Limbad was released since last Friday, but his name was still on a report.
Sure he had been conning unsuspecting tourists of their money and testing the placebo effect on them, but he wasn’t really selling drugs, so police let him go.
Photo: Illustration
