Human skulls smuggling foiled at airport

Multa Fidrus
The Jakarta Post/Tangerang

Customs and excise officers at the Soekarno-Hatta International Airport have seized three human skull smuggled through delivery packages from Denpasar, Bali to the United Kingdom between April 12 and 22.

“The skulls were sent by three different people identified as KP, YP and TK to the same receiver identified as MS in UK,” Eko Darmanto, chief of intelligence at the customs office told media on Thursday.

Eko said the skulls which were reported as wood carving / wood mark and wrapped neatly in hard paper boxes were sent through an express mail service on April 12, 17 and 22 respectively.

“First, we thought that the skulls were archeological items that are protected by the law on cultural conservation, but examination results at the Jakarta Archeological and Museums agency confirmed that the skull were not archeologial objects,” he said.

One of the skull with dark brown color was carved over head with unclear motives, one has been modified like a Indian man’s head and another one still remain in the original shape but the color had turned brown.

“Although the skulls are not archeologial objects, but human skull delivery is banned and we will however hand down them to the police for further investigation of possible crime,” he said.

Those who intentionally digs or moves human body from the grave and take it will face a 14 months-jail term as stipulated in Article 180 of the Criminal Code.

Officers also confiscated 3 kilograms of Catamine from two Indonesian-Chinese passengers identified as Johanes Tharkan, 34, and Riky Carlie Peterson who arrived from overseas at the airport on April 26.

According to Eko, Catamine is a kind of hard medicine (obat keras) which has been banned in the United States, United Kindom and Canada and many pother countries.

However, he refused to identify the country where the drug was transported fom by the two men, saying that customs and police investigation into the case was still underway.