Indonesian police fail 1 ton drug smuggling

**By APD Writer Maverick **

**JAKARTA, July 13 (APD) ** – Indonesian police failed the largest-ever drug smuggling attempt on Thursday, killed a Taiwanese man identified as the kingpin of the international drug ring after he retaliated from being captured by police during the operation.

The operation was carried out by Indonesian police after they obtained a tip-off from Taiwan authorities over the shipment of crystal methamphetamine to Indonesia.

Police confiscated one ton of crystal meth from the ring in the operation, making it the largest drug contraband that had ever been failed by Indonesian authorities.

“Yes, this is the biggest so far as it totally weighs 1 ton. It was conducted by an international drug ring through the sea,” Indonesian Police Spokesperson Setyo Wasisto said on Thursday.

The drug ring was caught after they smuggled the drugs through Anyer beach in Banten province’s capital of Serang, some 130 kilometers west of the capital Jakarta, earlier in the day.

The confiscated drugs were taken from an abandoned hotel project in Serang, packed in 51 boxes.

According to police the smuggling was organized by four Taiwanese men.

Police arrested two of them while another one was escaped.

Before the Thursday’s operation, the largest drugs smuggling attempt in Indonesia occurred in West Jakarta in 2015, weighed 800 kilograms.

Indonesian authorities sentenced the smuggler to death penalty whose execution was done in 2016.

Police said that the contraband was valued 1.5 trillion rupiah (about 112.3 million U.S. Dollars), to be distributed in Jakarta.

Indonesia has declared war against drug abuses in the present government as it has become a serious issue in the country with millions of people have already affected across the country.

Dozens of domestic and foreign drug dealers have been executed to death in Indonesia in the last several years after went through trials in the courts.

(ASIA PACIFIC DAILY)