Muninggar Sri Saraswati, Jakarta – Activists here told the government on Tuesday that illegal logging was the work of domestic organized crime syndicates – including security officials – and that everybody involved must be investigated and prosecuted to stop the forest destruction.

The Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) and Greenomics Indonesia said the presence of a domestic "mafia", involving law enforcers, negated any attempt to bring the masterminds to justice.

They gave an example of the case of the Mongolian-flagged Bravery Falcon freighter, which was caught red-handed transporting some 19,000 cubic meter of logs from Papua in December 2003.

The case was eventually heard at the North Jakarta District Court with prosecutors seeking a 4+year prison sentence and a Rp 50 million fine for the Vietnamese captain, but none of his backers. The verdict is expected on Wednesday. Elfian Effendy of Greenomics Indonesia said that case was evidence of a syndicate in the country, with the likely involvement of dozens of officials.

"The Bravery Falcon is a very large ship. It would be impossible for it to transport so many tons of logs, some measuring two meters in diameter, freely through Indonesian waters without the presence of a domestic mafia," he said.

Elfian said the government of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who vowed to combat illegal logging, must not only seize the logs and prosecute the captain transporting them, but should go after the real backers.

"It is not enough [to prosecute just the boat captain], that is just a show trial. The most important thing is to uncover the involvement of domestic mafia and punish them," he said.

Teten Masduki, the coordinator of ICW, said that the government had never prosecuted high-ranking officials, be they police, military personnel or bureaucrats – for their alleged involvement in such crimes.

He said that if the government was serious in its attempt to stop illegal logging, it must closely watch the forests as well as the roads and waterways, where the logs are transported abroad. "It is impossible for the local administration officials to be unaware of the tree-cutting in their forests. It is also impossible that the police are unaware that these logs are being taken from forests to ports," he explained.

Recently, a low-ranking police officer accused of illegal logging in Papua turned himself in to the National Police headquarters after years on the run. Investigators said that they would try to find out from him if there was involvement of higher-ranking officials in the case.