Taiwanese, Indonesian and US authorities raided an amphetamine production facility on Indonesia's Batam Island on Oct. 20, seizing nearly 600kg of amphetamines with a street value of approximately US$45 million.
The Ministry of Justice's Investigation Bureau (MJIB) said in a statement yesterday that authorities from Taiwan and Indonesia had arrested three Taiwanese and three Indonesians in an apartment on Batam Island before seizing the drugs, the biggest find of amphetamines in Indonesia in recent years.
The bureau said the main suspect, Taiwanese national Wang Ching-yi (
Wang also provided funds and production skills for the factory, the statement said.
The bureau said the factory began production last month, with the intent to smuggle drugs into Indonesia, Taiwan and China using airplanes and boats.
It said that Taiwanese criminals have been moving amphetamine production to Southeast Asia because of a crackdown on amphetamine production and the increasing cost of producing amphetamine in China.
The bureau said the MJIB and the Criminal Investigation Bureau had learned that Wang was preparing to produce amphetamine in Indonesia in April and cooperated with the National Narcotics Board of Indonesia to investigate the case.
The codename for the investigation was "Crystal Ice."
The bureau said that initially the law enforcement officers had great trouble locating the production site and tracing the suspects because the latter were experienced criminals.
The MJIB said Indonesian authorities had sent a special anti-terrorism police force to Batam Island to help with the operation.
Officials from the US Drug Enforcement Administration were also involved.
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