Illustration of tobacco. (Photo: Shutterstock)
Sleman Police narcotics unit exposed a most recent network of gorilla tobacco trafficking after arresting four people who were found to be users and dealers of the drug.
One of the suspects, Arnoldus Jansen admitted having been selling the tobacco to students for more than a year with forty of them have becoming his regular customers.
Their target were students in Sleman and its surrounding areas. "We sell through word of mouth or via Instagram," said Arnold in Sleman Police Station, Wednesday.
To get into the students' circle, Arnold initially offered cigarettes before he showed his real goods to targets. To fool the apparatus, the tobacco was converted in liquid form, turning electric cigarettes users into his main customers.
Each tube containing two to three mililiters of gorilla tobacco liquid was sold at Rp 200,000 to Rp 300,000.
Police also arrested Aditya Firdaus, another dealer where from his hand 15 ready-to-sell tubes of liquid tobacco and raw tobacco were secured as evidences. In his residence, the officers discovered a token device used to transfer money along with saving books from various banks.
Adit admitted getting the tobacco from a dealer in Bandung also Tanggerang, West Java, and he used Instagram to order it.
"I never know who the Instagram account owner is," he said.
Every 50 milligrams of liquid gorilla tobacco cost him at Rp 2.5 million. Adit then divided it into 15 tubes.
Sleman Police deputy chief Comm. Pol. Heru Muslimin explained that the arrest of two suspects was the result of the earlier case development. Previously, two underage students under initial AB and LB were found to consume gorilla tobacco when the Mlati Police apprehended them in Cebongan.
(brl/red)
