Riau Islands Customs Prevents Illegal Lobster Seed Smuggling Into Singapore

The Riau Islands Customs Patrol Unit managed to thwart the smuggling of 138,000 lobster seeds and it is suspected that they will be smuggled to Singapore / Photo: Antara

TANJUNGPINANG - The Riau Islands Customs Patrol Unit (Kepri) thwarted the smuggling of 138.000 lobster seeds or IDR 14 billion, which was suspected to be smuggled to Singapore.

Head of the Riau Islands Customs Regional Office (Kakanwil) Akhmad Rofiq said from the officers' enumeration results, the lobster seeds to be smuggled consisted of two types, namely, sand lobster seeds and pearl lobster seeds. It was thwarted because of the information that the public gave to Customs and Excise officers," said Akhmad Rofiq in Karimun, Monday, March 28.

He explained that the chronology of events began with the development of information from the community. The Patrol Unit then carried out guard at several points suspected of being passed by the perpetrators of smuggling lobster seeds by sea, he continued.

Saturday, March 26, at around 03.30 a.m. local time, officers observed a ship passing at very high speed in Batam waters.

Suspicious of this behavior, the officer then tried to approach and give a signal to the perpetrator to stop so that an examination could be carried out. Instead of stopping, the perpetrators on the speedboat actually increased speed and tried to escape from the inspection, he said. "Aware that they could not escape at sea, the fast boat then ran aground on an island in the waters of Batam Island and the perpetrators managed to escape through the mangrove forest," he added, quoted by Antara.

After observing and chasing for about two hours, the officers finally managed to secure and confiscate evidence in the form of a fast boat and lobster seeds packed in 30 Styrofoam boxes.

All the evidence was secured by being pulled to the Kepri Customs pier in Karimun Regency. "Lobster seeds were immediately released into the waters around Karimun Island, Saturday (26/3), because it is a commodity with a high mortality risk," he said. is one of Indonesia's natural resources, which if managed properly and exported in accordance with the provisions will bring in quite a large amount of foreign exchange. He said the Riau Islands Customs and Excise was always ready to secure government policies in the context of national economic recovery.