National

Three Pertamina Officials in Cilacap Named as Fuel Smuggling Suspects
Tuesday, 13 September, 2005 | 19:21 WIB

TEMPO Interactive, Jakarta:Three officials from the Cilacap branch of the State Oil Company Pertamina have been named as fuel smuggling suspects.

They are the head of the Cilacap warehouse, the head of the filling-up department and the head of the warehouse section.

National Police headquarters (HQ) director II on the special economy Brig. Gen. Andi Chaerudin said that the three were allegedly involved in fuel smuggling cases in Cilacap.

However, Chaerudin declined to reveal the names of the three officials.

“Just ask the detectives,” he said when contacted by phone on Sunday (11/09) in Jakarta.

Chaeruddin also said that several officials of Pertamina in East Java, Pekan Baru, Ujung Pandang and East Kalimantan are assumed to have been involved in fuel smuggling.

Currently, the police are investigating the possibility of employees from Pertamina headquarters being involved.

Chaeruddin added that between January and August this year, there had been 462 cases of smuggling, naming 656 people as the suspects in these cases, involving 9,813,263 liters of fuel (9,813.263 tons).

Evidence which has already been seized includes 56 ships and 183 of tankers.

The fuel has been smuggled in several ways.

One way is by misappropriating fuel from storage tanks.

Another way is by fishing boats exploiting subsidized fuel and selling it to foreign-flag ships.

The subsidized fuel is then sold to the tankers ship when take the fuel to international waters to trade
Pertamina spokesperson Mohammad Harun confirmed that some Pertamina employees were allegedly involved in fuel smuggling cases.

Harun said that Pertamina has established cooperation with the police and would continue investigating how far they had been involved. (Erwin Dariyanto –Tempo News Room)