Indonesia Arrests Brazilian, South African for Smuggling Cocaine to Bali

Associated Press
July 24, 2025 | 2:00 pm
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I Gusti Ngurah Rai International Airport in Bali . (The Jakarta Globe/Faisal Maliki Baskoro)
I Gusti Ngurah Rai International Airport in Bali . (The Jakarta Globe/Faisal Maliki Baskoro)

Denpasar. Indonesian authorities have arrested two foreign nationals accused of smuggling cocaine to Bali, the country’s popular tourist island, officials said Thursday.

A 25-year-old Brazilian man and a 32-year-old South African woman were arrested separately on July 13 after customs officers at Bali’s Ngurah Rai International Airport detected suspicious items in the man’s luggage and in the woman’s underwear during X-ray checks.

Indonesia enforces some of the world’s strictest drug laws, with convicted traffickers facing possible execution by firing squad.

Made Sinar Subawa, head of the Eradication Division at Bali’s Narcotics Agency, said the Brazilian, identified by the initials YB, was found with 3,086 grams (6.8 pounds) of cocaine hidden in the lining of his suitcase and backpack after arriving from Dubai. On the same day, officers arrested the South African woman, identified as LN, who was carrying 991 grams (2.1 pounds) of cocaine concealed in her underwear.

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During questioning, YB told investigators he had been promised 40 million rupiah ($2,450) to deliver the cocaine he obtained in Brasilia to a man he identified only as “Tio Paulo.” LN said she expected to receive Rp 25 million ($1,500) for delivering the drugs to someone she named “Cindy,” Subawa said.

A police operation to arrest the contacts named by the suspects was unsuccessful, with authorities believing the individuals are low-level distributors within broader trafficking networks.

The suspects, dressed in orange prison uniforms and masks with their hands cuffed, were presented at a news conference in Denpasar along with the cocaine seized during the arrests.

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime notes that despite Indonesia’s harsh drug laws, the country remains a major transit hub targeted by international syndicates due to its large and youthful population.

Separately, the Denpasar District Court was scheduled later Thursday to deliver verdicts in two other drug cases involving foreign nationals. The court was set to sentence an Argentine woman and a British man charged with smuggling cocaine, as well as three British nationals, including a woman, in a separate drug case.

According to the Ministry of Law and Human Rights, about 530 people are currently on death row in the country, most for drug-related offenses, including 96 foreign nationals. Indonesia last carried out executions, which included one citizen and three foreigners, in July 2016.

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