The East Nusa Tenggara Police arrested a 42-year-old man identified by his initial S, who is originally from Medan but resides in Denpasar, on suspicion of having attempted to traffic dozens of Indonesians to Australia via East Nusa Tenggara’s waters. A total of 26 victims were rescued and are currently under the authorities’ supervision.
The director of the East Nusa Tenggara Police’s water and air police unit (Polairud), Sr. Comr. Nyoman Budiarja, said the victims include one person from North Sumatra, one from West Java, four from Central Java, nine from East Java, seven from Bali, and four from West Nusa Tenggara.
“The 26 [victims] consist of one woman and 25 men,” Nyoman said at a press conference yesterday.
He explained that an unnamed fisherman tipped them off about possible people smuggling activities at the Tenai port in Kupang on April 11 around 8:10pm. According to Nyoman, the police busted the human trafficking activities that same evening at 11:35pm.
S, the suspect, admitted that he was the one who recruited the victims and promised them jobs at a plantation in Australia via Facebook. Each victim paid S various amounts of money — between IDR 60 million (US$ 4,180) and IDR 90 million (US$ 6,270) — in order to secure their spots. They were told that they would make IDR 30 million a month (US$ 2,090).
One victim, MK, said that S only asked him for his passport as a travel requirement. MK admitted that he had already transferred IDR 85 million (US$ 5,925) to S.
“I felt duped,” said MK.
Under Indonesian Law, S could face a minimum prison sentence of 5 years and a maximum of IDR 1.5 billion (US$ 104,536) in fines if found guilty.
