Bali Customs And Excise Forms Special Task Force Ahead Of New Year's Holidays

The Ngurah Rai Customs Office, Bali formed a special task force to supervise passengers and goods sent at I Gusti Ngurah Rai International Airport ahead of the 2023 Christmas and 2024 New Year holidays.

"We anticipate that Ngurah Rai Customs and Excise is on full alert. We are on standby for the next Christmas and New Year holidays, we have increased supervision," said Head of the Regional Office of the Directorate General of Customs and Excise in Bali, NTB and NTT Susila Brata as reported by ANTARA, Tuesday, December 5.

According to him, the formation of the task force is an effort to tighten the entrance to Bali from I Gusti Ngurah Rai International Airport from cross-border crimes.

The perpetrators of crimes, he said, took advantage of certain moments such as religious holidays and the new year, which began to carry out their actions, observing the trend of previous years.

His party also anticipates the new mode used by criminals.

However, he was not willing to reveal the efforts to increase supervision so as not to become a gap for criminals to avoid.

"Usually violations increase during the Christmas and New Year holidays. Last year there was a high increase with the discovery of large amounts of narcotics on New Year's Eve," he said.

Meanwhile, Head of the Ngurah Rai Customs Office, Mira Puspita Dewi, said that in the prosecution of psychotropic and precursor narcotics (NPP), the majority were found through passenger luggage, including those that dominated methamphetamine and marijuana.

In addition to passenger luggage, his party also oversees the goods sent by post and cargo.

"For NPP, the majority of passengers go through the most Methamphetamine luggage, there are also posts and cargo but more are brought by passengers," he added.

Based on data from Customs and Excise in Bali, NTB and NTT, the prosecution of NPP during the January-October 2023 period was carried out 112 times.

Ngurah Rai Customs issued 89 evidence of prosecution (SBP) in January-November 2023 for the prosecution of NPP with a potential state loss estimated at IDR 53.8 billion.

In addition to the prosecution of NPP, his party also took customs action, reaching 504 cases with a potential state loss of IDR 3.14 billion.

Not only that, the prosecution of the excise sector found 309 cases with a potential state loss of Rp. 10.7 billion.

Meanwhile, for the Bali and Nusa Tenggara regions during January-October 2023, 1,659 prosecutions were carried out with state losses prevented from reaching Rp. 19.6 billion.