Jakarta (Antara Bali) - The Indonesian National Police (Polri) have successfully uncovered a case of human trafficking in which Indonesian citizens were being transported to Malaysia to serve as commercial sex workers.
Chief of Polris Criminal Offenses division Umar Surya Fana said the racket was unraveled after a victim filed a report on May 3.
"We immediately conducted an investigation which led to the arrest of three suspects, AR a.k.a. Vio, RHW a.k.a. Rendi a.k.a. Radit and SH a.k.a. Sarip," Fana stated at the Bareskrim Offices in Jakarta on Monday.
He assured that Polri will continue to investigate the case until all suspects are arrested.
The perpetrators modus operandi was to lure the victims with the offer of a job of spa therapist in Malaysia at 15 million rupiah per month salary.
"These people were recruited through social media platforms WeChat, Bee Talk and Tagged," Fana noted.
The suspects, he continued, were able to produce authentic passports obtained by submitting fake documents with the immigration offices in Jakarta by paying 9.5 million rupiah per passport. They were even able to get the victims names changed to make it seem that they had obtained passports before.
Polri strongly suspected that Sarip was part of a syndicate specializing in producing counterfeit documents for passports.
As soon as they arrived in Malaysia, victims found that they had signed up to work as sex workers in Kuala Lumpur.
They were not paid salaries for the first two months and were not allowed to return to Indonesia either. They were told that they need to pay off their debt incurred on account of the cost of their departure, passports and accommodation.
According to the police, a victim, YS, admitted that they were forced to serve four to nine men a day.
After two months of work, YS could not bear it anymore and begged to return home, on the excuse that her parents were sick.
As soon as she arrived in the motherland, she reported her predicament to the police.
Fana further narrated that there were 12 victims, two of whom have returned to Indonesia, five remain in a detention center in Kuala Lumpur and four in women protection centers. Whereabouts of the rest were still unknown.
"We have coordinated with the Foreign Ministry to further investigate this case and rescue the victims. We will also send our investigators to Malaysia," Fana concluded.(WDY)
