BATAM: Indonesia’s National Police have seized nearly 74,000 live lobster larvae in Batam, Riau Islands, destined for Vietnam, in the latest enforcement action since a sweeping permanent export ban on the commodity took effect just one week earlier.
Officers from the Criminal Investigation Department's (Bareskrim) Directorate of Specific Crimes confiscated 73,877 live lobster larvae, known locally as benih bening lobster (BBL), on Monday, packaged in 13 styrofoam boxes. Two couriers, identified only by the initials RVJ and FAS, were arrested.
The bust came a week after Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Minister Sakti Wahyu Trenggono formally enacted a permanent ban on exporting the marine resource, backed by Presidential Regulation No. 69/2026, which established a national task force to dismantle smuggling networks.
"The task force is an effort to establish sound lobster management in Indonesia to build a competitive national lobster farming industry and improve the welfare of local fishers," Trenggono said at its launch in Jakarta on Oct 12.
Coordinating Food Minister Zulkifli Hasan highlighted the wider economic implications of the illegal trade.
"From our seas, we are losing enormous resource potential. Nearly Rp 200 trillion (US$11.1 billion) worth of marine resources is lost every year due to theft," he said.
The suspects allegedly operated a multi-country transit route designed to avoid detection. Police said the larvae were collected in Pangandaran, West Java, transported overland to Tangerang, Banten, then moved by truck through Sumatra and Jambi to Batam, a common staging point for maritime smuggling, before being transshipped via Malaysia, Singapore and Cambodia to Vietnam.
"This network moved the BBL through a chain route, organised to avoid detection by officers," said special crimes chief Brig Gen Mohammad Irhamni at a press conference at Batam’s aquaculture centre on Tuesday.
Based on initial examinations, the shipment is suspected to have been the group's 10th successful operation.
The suspects used a cell-based communications system to conceal the identities of network controllers and overseas buyers. Police also seized a Daihatsu Gran Max vehicle and four mobile phones.
Investigators are pursuing potential money-laundering charges to trace criminal proceeds and identify the ring's financiers.
Of the seized specimens, 73,477 will be transferred to the Batam aquaculture centre for cultivation to marketable size, while 400 are being retained as court evidence.
Sahono Budianto of the Marine and Fisheries Resource Supervision Directorate General (PSDKP) said Batam had been designated a pilot site for lobster nursery development.
"This aquaculture step is important so that rescued biological resources can provide legal economic added value for local fishers and coastal communities," he said.
The permanent ban reflects a decade-long policy struggle. Indonesia first prohibited lobster larvae exports in 2016, lifted the restriction in 2020 under then-minister Edhy Prabowo, and reinstated it in 2021 following his arrest on bribery charges linked to export permits.
Before his arrest, 14 companies had shipped more than US$39 million worth of larvae, 99 per cent of which went to Vietnam, a major lobster producer reliant on wild Indonesian lobster larvae, according to Statistics Indonesia.
Trenggono briefly reopened exports in late 2024 on the condition that foreign buyers invest in domestic cultivation, but suspended the arrangement in August 2025 amid continued illegal trade.
Batam and the broader Riau Islands archipelago remain a known transit corridor for transnational fisheries crime.
Authorities have recorded several large-scale larvae seizures this year. Customs officers intercepted 231,130 larvae near Lingga Island in February, while police seized roughly 100,000 in Batam city in May. The latter shipment was hidden in suitcases packed with second-hand clothing bound for Singapore. - Jakarta Post/ANN
