Brunei Attends Aseanapol Conference In Indonesia
By Rosli Abidin Yahya

Bandar Seri Begawan - The failure to track chemists and the precursor chemicals for certain types of illegal drugs remains a major obstacle in the fight against drug trafficking, a senior Indonesian officer told conference participants in Bali last Wednesday.

Chemists are indispensable in the production of illegal drugs, said Sr. Comr. Indradi Tharos, a senior officer at the Indonesian police headquarters. He is chairing the conference commission debating terrorism, human and drug trafficking, and arms smuggling.

"The process of making drugs involves the presence of a chemist, so it is important to have a list of chemists who travel frequently across (Southeast Asian) countries that can be shared among us," he said at the 25th Asean Chiefs of Police Conference (Aseanapol), local newspapers reported.

The conference is also attended by seven police officers from the Royal Brunei Police led by Acting Commissioner of Police Pehin Datu Kerma Setia Zainuddin Jalani.

The conference commission also' discussed plans to beef up the monitoring of imports of precursor chemicals necessary for the production of ecstasy and methamphetamine or syabu from countries that produce these chemicals.

"This monitoring will be a huge challenge in the future because there are enormous markets for these two types of drugs, whether in America, Europe, Australia and even Indonesia," said Indradi.

The challenge, he said, is even more difficult for Indonesia because the country has yet to pass a law criminalising the unlicenced possession of these precursor chemicals. The absence of such a law has often led to the imposition of administrative sanctions only, not jail sentences, for companies found to have misused their import licences.

Another issue discussed at the conference was the possibility of inventorying the assets of suspected drug traffickers to help the authorities charge the suspects under money laundering laws. The conference, which will run till today also highlighted efforts to tighten the monitoring of ports to cut down on the amount of illegal drugs entering the member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean).

"We have several ports that are loosely monitored, such as Benoa Port in Bali which serves about 700 boats per month.

The problem is how to tighten the monitoring of these boats," Indradi said. He said a survey was underway of Indonesia's ports to identify those that needed to tighten their security and monitoring procedures. -- Courtesy of Borneo Bulletin

Click Here To Have Your Say On This Story

Brudirect.com News