An elderly foreign citizen has been arrested by the Soekarno-Hatta Airport Immigration Office because he was found to be entering Indonesia using a fake Mexican passport.
Head of the Immigration Office Class I Special Immigration Checkpoint at Soekarno-Hatta, Muhammad Tito Andrianto, revealed that before the arrest his team already had suspicions about the man.
Known as EW, it had been noted that his physical characteristics were different from his identity. EW was also only fluent in Mandarin, even though his identity shows as a Mexican citizen.
“His physical characteristics are not like Mexicans in general, and when asked he also can’t speak English and Mexican, only Mandarin,” explained Andrianto at a press conference on Tuesday 12th July 2022.
The officer also found irregularities in the passport used because it was found that the cover, visa page, and the sewing thread on the passport had signs of changes and seemed untidy.
“We followed up by conducting a forensic examination of the document, the result was that the passport used by EW was concluded to be fake,” added Andrianto.
For his actions, EW can be charged under article 119 paragraph 2 of law number 6 of 2011 concerning immigration with the threat of imprisonment for a maximum of five years and a maximum fine of Rp500 million.
“For now, the suspect EW is being held at the Class II A Tangerang Prison during the investigation process,” said Andrianto.
Meanwhile, Andika Pandu as Head of Intelligence Dakim Immigration at Soekarno-Hatta Airport, said that this was not the first time EW had entered Indonesia using a fake passport. He had previously entered Indonesia four times successfully.
“Four trips that have been completed in and out, this is the fifth time we have failed,” said Pandu.
EW has also been a range of other countries with the fake passport. There are stamps for countries such as Cambodia and Singapore among others, which are not clear because the stamps overlap.
“It’s quite clear that it was a fake passport. We suspect that he entered Indonesia for economic reasons,” he added.