Four Bukit Aman officers have arrived in Jakarta to question a Malaysian pilot detained for drug smuggling, as police struggle to crack a syndicate that registers phone numbers under false identities.
Narcotics Crime Investigation Department (NCID) director Comm Datuk Hussein Omar Khan said officers would meet the pilot on Aug 12 and 13 to compare information gathered in Malaysia with what the suspect can provide.
“We want to verify several other matters related to the case so that we can obtain more detailed and accurate information from him,” The Star reported.
Comm Hussein said tracking syndicate members had proven difficult because they registered telephone numbers using fake identification documents.
According to FMT, the NCID director said police could not simply trace a phone number to its owner and make an immediate arrest.
“They registered this phone number under a false identity. But we have other means of tracing them,” he said.
Police have called up four people in Malaysia to assist investigations. The main focus remains the syndicate behind the operation, not the pilot alone.
The 39-year-old pilot was arrested at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport on 29 July after Indonesian authorities found 25kg of ecstasy pills and 2.7g of methamphetamine in his luggage.
Earlier investigations revealed the pilot had collected the drug supply from an apartment in Ampang before departing for Jakarta. He arrived at KLIA on the morning of 28 July, checked in the luggage containing the drugs, then flew to Kota Kinabalu and returned to Kuala Lumpur before finally departing for Jakarta with the same bags.
Comm Hussein said Malaysian police were cooperating with the Indonesian National Police and Indonesia’s National Narcotics Agency to map the full distribution chain, including the source of the drugs and the syndicate’s international network.
Police have also recorded statements from two KLIA Aviation Security personnel. Initial checks showed they had no direct connection with the suspect, and no arrests have been made among airport staff.
Separately, a second Malaysian man aged 22 was detained at Juanda International Airport in Surabaya. Police are still investigating whether the two cases are linked.
Comm Hussein said investigations into the Surabaya case were complicated by the syndicate’s use of third-party information for phone registration and social media platforms for communication.
According to police records, this is the fourth case involving a pilot used as a drug courier since 2012. One pilot was caught transporting drugs to Australia in 2012, while two more cases were recorded in 2017.
