Indonesia seizes record US$590mil in meth, uncovers maritime drug route in South-East Asia

The Star

2 days ago

JAKARTA: Indonesia is on track to record the largest seizure of drugs by the National Narcotics Agency (BNN) in six years, said the agency's chief, with confiscation of methamphetamine reaching 3.41 tonnes – with a street value of US$590 million – so far in 2025.
This half-year haul has surpassed the total annual seizure in the previous five years.
The latest raid in the waters off Batam in mid-May netted a record 2.1 tonnes of methamphetamine, a synthetic drug also known as meth. The amount can feed eight million addicts, with each gram typically consumed by four people.
BNN confiscated less than a tonne for the whole of 2024, and between 2020 and 2023, annually netted between 1.2 tonnes and 2.8 tonnes, according to government data.
Government agencies have also, so far in 2025, seized 2.65 tonnes of other drugs, such as marijuana and cocaine, with a street value of at least $95 million.
In an interview on July 3, BNN chief Marthinus Hukom shed light on a drug-trafficking maritime route spanning Malaysia, the Philippines and Taiwan.
'The production was in Myanmar while the vessel was built in Thailand,' said Commissioner-General Marthinus, referring to the meth seizure in May.
Large-scale production of meth, combined with an ongoing war in Myanmar since 2021, has driven up the supply of the illicit drug in South-east Asia, said a recent report by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
Seizures of meth across the region were at record highs in 2024, totalling 236 tonnes – a 24 per cent increase compared with the 2023 haul, said UNODC.
Meth, a powerful and fast-acting stimulant, can harm a person's heart, teeth and brain if used regularly. It can also cause paranoia, mood swings and memory loss.
While there has been a slight decline in drug prevalence in Indonesia, it is still at a worrying level. Marijuana and meth are the two most-used drugs, followed by Ecstasy, ketamine, cocaine and prescription drug abuse.
The number of police cases involving arrests of drug offenders in the first 11 months of 2024 stood at 53,672 – up from 50,291 cases in 2023, and 44,983 in 2022, according to government data.
Marthinus revealed that for the large meth seizure in May, the drugs had been loaded onto a trade ship in the Andaman Sea off Myanmar. The vessel, Sea Dragon Tarawa, then sailed south through the Malacca Strait to the waters bordering Indonesia and Singapore.
It later turned into the South China Sea, cruising off Kalimantan to drop off the meth packages for the Indonesian market, he said.
The ship then headed into Philippine and Taiwan waters to unload more drugs. It later looped back to go back into the Andaman Sea, with the trip made several times.
It was during one of those regular trips that the ship was caught near Batam, after leaving the Malacca Strait. Data of the trips made was collected by BNN from the vessel's Automatic Identification System satellites.
Noting that drug packages sometimes fall off a vessel during trans-shipment, Marthinus said: 'Small boats pick up merchandise from the passing vessel. In the past, local fishermen have found drug packages floating on the sea off North Kalimantan.'
The drugs dropped off near Kalimantan were taken to Java and Sulawesi, among other places.
According to BNN's analysis, the drugs normally enter Malaysia via boats from Sarawak's capital Kuching and the Philippines through Tawi-Tawi and Mindanao islands. Singapore was not on the delivery list of the Sea Dragon Tarawa.
'We have cut the trade chain for not only Asean countries, but also Taiwan. We expect the drug rings will change their route,' said Marthinus, a former head of Indonesia's anti-terror police squad Detachment 88.
Meth in Indonesia is commonly consumed by labourers, plantation workers, drivers and nightlife workers, while marijuana is typically favoured by youth and students.
Another synthetic drug, Ecstasy, is commonly used in nightclubs, said BNN.
Maturidi Putra, a former drug addict who has been clean for 10 years, said: 'The cure is as simple as returning to the life we had before we became addicted. Avoid the people and environment that led us there in the first place.'
The 51-year-old entrepreneur is among scores of people who have returned to a normal life without going through rehabilitation.
Denny Bintang, 39, an anti-drug activist who started a 6,400-member Facebook group promoting rehabilitation and campaigning against illicit drugs, told The Straits Times that many addicts are unaware of government facilities that offer free rehabilitation services.
'Many are also afraid to come forward and use the service, thinking they will be arrested,' said Denny, noting there is low awareness that Indonesian law recognises some users as victims, not criminals.
He also noted that privately run rehabilitation centres are expensive and not every addict or the family can afford it.
The average retail price of meth in Indonesia in 2024 was about US$135 (S$173) per gram, according to UNODC.
Prices vary widely across the region, with the lowest prices reported near Myanmar and rising in places farther away. The per-gram street price is US$6 in Myanmar, US$79 in the Philippines, and US$68 in Hong Kong, the UN agency said in a June 26 report.
The May raid on the Sea Dragon Tarawa was the result of a five-month intelligence operation, Marthinus said. The six-member crew – four Indonesians and two Thais – were arrested, and 67 cardboard boxes, wrapped in plastic and camouflaged as green tea packages, were seized as evidence. Inside the boxes were 2,000 smaller packages of meth weighing a total of 2.1 tonnes.
Similar to a terror network, drug ring leaders target people from poor economic backgrounds to help them expand operations as they are easy to recruit, said Marthinus.
'In the drug operations, they are the sales agents, couriers... We map out the regions in Indonesia that are prone to be recruitment centres. We do our work from there,' he added.
Meanwhile, the total number of drug abusers remains a worry, even though the figure has dipped slightly. Indonesian government data shows drug users in the 15 to 64 age group totalled 3.33 million people in 2023, compared with 3.66 million in 2021.
Yogo Tri Hendiarto, a criminologist at the University of Indonesia, told ST: 'Demand dictates supply.
The large quantity of drugs confiscated this year suggests that demand remains strong in Indonesia and elsewhere, while the country's low prevalence rate indicates that prevention and rehabilitation efforts have been effective.'
But he noted that the lower number of drug abusers could be due to weaknesses in survey methodology. - The Straits Times/ANN