JAKARTA: Immigration officials in Batam, the Riau Islands, have deported 92 Chinese nationals and imposed lifetime bans on traveling to the country after they were arrested for allegedly running a local scam network.
Batam Immigration Office spokesperson Kharisma Rukmana said the group was deported aboard a China Southern Airlines plane to Guangzhou that departed from Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in Tangerang, Banten on Sunday.
"The repatriation was carried out at the official request of the People's Republic of China through the Ministry of Public Security, which also facilitated the escort team and covered all operational costs," Kharisma told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday (July 8).
Immigration authorities activated a special contingency protocol to handle the mass deportation, which processed the deportees separately from ordinary passengers.
The protocol also involved biometric verification and security escorts to the aircraft, to ensure that the deportation proceeded smoothly without disrupting regular airport operations.
"We hope these deportations and lifetime entry bans will deter other foreign criminals from carrying out illegal activities in Indonesia. We will not tolerate foreign nationals who threaten public order and security," Immigration Director General Hendarsam Marantoko said in a statement.
He added that the government decided to deport the suspected scammers and hand them over to Chinese authorities for further legal processing because all of the victims were Chinese residents.
The 92 Chinese citizens were arrested on May 6 among a total of 210 people, the others from Vietnam and Myanmar, during a raid on the Baloi View Apartment complex in Lubuk Baja, Batam.
Authorities initially reported that 84 Chinese nationals had been detained prior to final verification.
The suspects were allegedly involved in a range of cybercrimes, including investment fraud, romance scams, online gambling and phishing.
Most had entered the country under the visa-free or visa on arrival facilities, posing as tourists to conceal their intent to carry out criminal activities during their stay, according to authorities.
Indonesia is emerging as a new operational hub for transnational online gambling and cyber scam syndicates, according to the National Police, amid intensifying crackdowns on scam centers in mainland Southeast Asian countries, such as Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam.
Late last month in Medan, North Sumatra, authorities arrested seven Chinese and Vietnamese nationals along with 31 Indonesians for their alleged involvement in an international online dating scam syndicate.
In May, the Central Java Police dismantled an international cyber scam syndicate that allegedly used “pig butchering” techniques to lure victims into investing large sums of money.
Police arrested 39 suspects, comprising 28 Indonesians, seven Nepalis and four Myanmar nationals.
That same month, the Jakarta Police arrested 321 foreign nationals allegedly linked to an online gambling syndicate that was operating from an office building on Jl. Hayam Wuruk in West Jakarta.
The detained suspects included 228 Vietnamese and 57 Chinese, with the remainder from Myanmar, Laos, Thailand and Cambodia.
In a separate operation in East Java capital Surabaya, also in May, police uncovered an international scam network comprising 44 people from Indonesia, China, Japan and Taiwan.
Police also rescued two Japanese nationals, Yuria Kikuchi and Midori Shikaura, who were allegedly held captive by the group.
In an effort to prevent Indonesia from becoming a safe haven for transnational criminal syndicates, the Immigration Directorate General is conducting a comprehensive review of the visa-free policy for certain countries that have been identified as major sources of online scam perpetrators. - The Jakarta Post/ANN
