Jakarta – Police in the Indonesian capital have warned the public against a burgeoning blackmail racket in Jakarta run by groups posing as journalists who prey on government officials and businessmen.
Police spokesman Adjutant Commander Alex Mandalika urged victims to lodge immediate reports with the police to enable them to nab the culprits, the Jakarta Post reported Friday.
"The Criminal Code Procedures stipulate that police investigators could not arrest a person posing as a journalist without any report from the victim," Mandalika said.
He said the "pseudo-journalists" had even been "operating" inside city police headquarters, including the notoriously corrupt driving license division.
Mandalika told the Post that one group, calling itself the Gabungan Wartawan Indonesia (the Alliance of Indonesian Journalists), had several months ago reportedly demanded money from the police.
They had threatened to reveal the alleged involvement of police in supporting gambling houses in the city. "But the threat was only a hoax," he added, without explaining further.
The Post quoted a source in "close contact with the group of impostors" as saying they operated in three groups of between 25 and 40 members who met regularly at three locations in the city – a hotel, a coffee shop, and a market.
"They are very convincing and well organized. They have high solidarity, such as donating money to their members who are sick," the source told the Post.
He said the operators usually selected their victims – officials or businessmen – by reading newspapers. They would then visit the victims and demand money. "They never visit their victims alone, but in small groups consisting of between five and 10 people," the source said.
He said the impostors each earn between 100,000 rupiah 200,000 (10 to 20 dollars) per day from their operations, which they often describe as a "news investigation."
The Post said Jakarta police had last year detained a "pseudo- journalist" who, along with associates, had allegedly blackmailed several governors attending a meeting at the Ministry of Home Affairs. The detained man has denied the accusations, and claimed to be a bona fide, accredited member of the press.
The Indonesian press, which was muzzled under the former authoritarian president Suharto, has long operated on a system of "Uang Jalan" (travel money) under which any company holding a press conference hands out white envelopes.
After Suharto's fall amid mass protests in May 1998, scores of banned publications reappeared alongside new tabloids, dot.com news services and magazines.
Many foreign news organizations in the capital have also had to cope with the "pseudo-journalists" posing as members of their staff to extract money from figures in the news.