KUCHING: Sarawak police have uncovered the use of LPG cylinders by drug traffickers to conceal shipments to West Kalimantan.
They stumbled on this when police busted a drug pipeline from the peninsula to the Indonesian province of West Kalimantan.
Investigations revealed that the traffickers stuffed empty 14kg liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) cylinders with the drugs before they transported it across the border via illegal border crossings.
Narcotics Crime Investigation Department Director, Commissioner of Police Datuk Khaw Kok Chin, revealed this modus operandi by the drug dealers at a press conference here following a drug seizure in Miri. The drugs seized amounted to a street value of RM716,000.
Khaw said drug couriers, who were paid RM3,000 each, would cut the bottom of the cylinders and then stuff the packed drugs – methamphetamine, or syabu as its more popularly known, into the cylinders.
Each cylinder could hold up to 10 packages of drugs.
LPG cylinders are unlikely to raise suspicions as they are a common item that Indonesian villagers living along the length of the Sarawak-Kalimantan border carry across daily.
"The backpacks or bags – the usual places where drugs and other contraband are normally carried – would be more likely searched than a gas cylinder," Khaw said.
Investigations showed the drug traffickers took a circuitous route that originated from the peninsula.
The drugs were flown by air on a regular airline to the northern Sarawak town of Miri.
Khaw said from there, the drugs were taken south on the Pan Borneo Highway to the unauthorised border crossing at Batu Lintang, in the Sri Aman Division, some 634km away.
He said before the drugs were transported to Batu Lintang, they were picked up from the airport and sent to a house in Lutong, a township some 20km from Miri town.
There, the drugs were repacked into Chinese tea packages before it was transported to the border.
Khaw said Sarawak was only used as a transit point and Kalimantan was the final destination as the "demand on the other side was much higher."
He said if in Malaysia, the street value of 1kg of syabu was RM3,000, in Kalimantan, the value could triple or even go up to five times when supply was low.
Khaw said the raid on the Lutong house was on intelligence police had gathered.
In the raid, police initially arrested two people who were in a car parked in front of the property.
He said one of the suspects was a man linked to a drug syndicate.
Khaw said the suspect was paid RM20,000 to recruit couriers to repack and transport the drugs to the border.
In the raid on the house, four more suspects were detained.
"We found the drugs inside the house," Khaw said.
He said the drugs weighed 21,700g.
He added that it was enough to feed the cravings of 108, 500 addicts.
Also seized in the raid were cash totalling RM52,000, jewellery worth RM54,000 and four cars suspected to be used in transporting the drugs.
The six suspects arrested - four males, two females whose ages ranged from 28 to 60 – face charges under Section 39B of the Dangerous Drug Act, 1953 which carries the mandatory death penalty on conviction.
Khaw said of the six who underwent the urine test for drug use, only one returned positive.
The suspect also had a previous conviction for being involved in cockfighting.