Jakarta. Authorities from the National Narcotics Agency (BNN) along with customs officials on Wednesday revealed that they had intercepted a shipment of two kilograms of crystal methamphetamine worth Rp 2.8 billion ($215,000) at Tanjung Priok Port in North Jakarta.

“Such drugs [typically] come from China,” said BNN spokesman Comr. Gen. Slamet Pribadi. “But they are shipped through Hong Kong and Singapore and then enter Indonesia through Tanjung Priok Port.”

It was not immediately clear when exactly the shipment had been discovered.

Slamet said the crystal meth package had been destined for a recently busted gang of distributors, currently held in Karawang Penitentiary, in West Java.

R. Fadjar Donny Tjahjadi, a top customs official, said the meth package seized at Tanjung Priok was hidden inside a closed-circuit television (CCTV) equipment box covered by aluminum foil and wrapped in plastic.

The BNN said it was trying to improve coordination with police in countries where the drugs are shipped from.

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Jakarta. Twelve people — three security guards and nine alleged members of the Betawi Brotherhood Forum (FBR) — were arrested on Friday after a fight in the parking area of Kelapa Gading’s Mall of Indonesia (MoI), in North Jakarta.

Police said the attack was related to an earlier incident in which a member of the FBR — a quasi-militant group known to operate protection rackets in the Greater Jakarta area — was beaten by security guards.

“This incident started when an FBR member named Iwan Setiawan was beaten with wooden batons by Kelapa Gading Square security guards on Friday at 3 a.m. because he was asking questions about a piece of advertising that had just been put up by MoI management,” Adj. Sr. Comr. Asep Adi Saputra, deputy chief of the North Jakarta Police, said on Saturday.

Kelapa Gading Square is the name of the complex where the MoI is located.

Asep said a group of FBR members wanted to avenge the beating by staging an attack on the security guards later in the day, carrying weapons such as bows and arrows, catapults, machetes and spears.

Police said they also confiscated a bottle of booze at scene.

The sharp weapons were not used in the fight, the police commissioner said, but four security guards were left injured nonetheless.

The FBR suspects arrested ranged in age from 36 to 46 years old, while the arrested guards were younger, at 25, 28 and 35 years of age.

Police said on Saturday that their investigation was still ongoing.

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Jakarta. North Jakarta Maritime, Agriculture, and Food Security Agency, along with North Jakarta Police on Tuesday collected 60 rice samples during an inspection of 20 traditional markets.

The samples were collected for examination at the agriculture ministry’s laboratory, North Jakarta Mayor Rustam Effendi said on Tuesday.

“This inspection is necessary and will be intensified, following reports of synthetic rice from Bogor and Bekasi. The existence of synthetic rice worries people,” Rustam said.

“We will also inspect the rice at modern markets because it’s possible that the synthetic rice comes from there.”

Fears of the so-called synthetic rice have spread across the country after lab results from state-controlled inspection firm Superintending Company of Indonesia, or Sucofindo, revealed two rice samples collected from Mutiara Gading market in Bekasi, West Java, contained contained benzyl butyl phthalate, 2-ethylhexyl phthalate and diisononyl phthalate, also known as plasticizer.

Long-term consumption of the synthetic rice, also known as plastic rice, can cause abdominal pain and even cancer.

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Jakarta. Three foreigners were arrested for violating immigration rules during a raid in North Jakarta on Thursday.

The foreign nationals — from Slovenia, Iraq and Nigeria — were detained for failing to produce their passports during a sweep of the Gading River View Apartments in the Mall of Indonesia complex in Kelapa Gading, North Jakarta, an official from the North Jakarta Immigration Office said on Friday.

They are currently being questioned at the North Jakarta Immigration Office.

Authorities said the operation was carried out to reduce drug distribution, the threat of terrorism and to check immigration documents.

It involved representatives from the Law and Human Rights Ministry, police, North Jakarta Civil Registry Agency, North Jakarta National and Political Unity Office, and the State Intelligence Agency (BIN).

A similar operation was carried out on Jalan Jaksa — a street popular with backpackers and tourists — earlier this week. Five foreigners were detained after they failed to produce proper documents for officers from the Central Jakarta Immigration Office.

Police officers also arrested two men for drug possession during the raid on Gading River View Apartments. The two suspects, who have been identified as Gunawan and Sri Nufitri, were found with two small packages of crystal methamphetamine, and have been detained by the North Jakarta Resort Police.

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