San Francisco Chronicle

Foreigners arrested for drugs on Bali

- By Firdia Lisnawati Firdia Lisnawati is an Associated Press writer.

DENPASAR, Indonesia — Indonesian authoritie­s said Wednesday that they have arrested six foreigners for allegedly trying to smuggle drugs onto the tourist island of Bali.

A Swiss man, a Thai man, a Singaporea­n woman, a Chilean man and two Hong Kong men wearing orange detainee uniforms were paraded with their feet and hands tied at a news conference in Denpasar, the capital of Bali province.

The customs spokesman for the Bali and Nusatengga­ra regional office, Wachid Kurniawan, said the suspects were arrested separately since last month upon arrival at the airport.

Kurniawan said the Swiss man was arrested Nov. 4 with a total of 30.04 grams of marijuana in his luggage. Two days later, customs officers nabbed the Thai man with 17.76 grams of marijuana concealed in his underwear.

He said the Singaporea­n woman was captured Nov. 14 after immigratio­n officer found a small plastic bag with 0.35 gram of cocaine inside her passport, while the Chilean man was nabbed two weeks later with 77.26 grams of liquid methamphet­amine in his black suitcase.

The Hong Kong man was arrested Dec. 4 with 7 pounds of crystal methamphet­amine in his luggage, and his 19yearold fellow Hong Kong national was captured last week with 8.8 pounds of crystal methamphet­amine wrapped in branded pet food packaging in his luggage, Kurniawan said.

Indonesia has extremely strict drug laws, and convicted smugglers are sometimes executed by firing squad.

More than 150 people are currently on death row, mostly for drug crimes. About onethird of them are foreigners.

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