INDONESIA’S DRUG LAWS: FOREIGNERS, ARRESTS, DEATH SENTENCES

INDONESIA’S HARSH DRUG LAWS

Warning sign that drug traffickers face the death penalty at Soekarno Hatta Airport in Jakarta

Indonesia’s legal framework for drug offenses is among the harshest in the world. Even possession of small amounts of certain drugs, can result in long prison sentences or capital punishment. People found with even a few grams of cannabis face 5 years to life imprisonment or a fine of roughly $67,800. Enforcement is particularly visible in high-risk areas such as Bali, where authorities frequently conduct raids on nightlife venues and private properties. While punitive measures remain dominant, there have been increasing efforts to address drug addiction through rehabilitation programs, led by the National Narcotics Agency (BNN), especially as prisons become overcrowded. [Source: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime]

Narcotics trafficking is a severe offense in Indonesia, as is the case in neighboring Singapore and Malaysia. A number of traffickers, including foreigners, have received death sentences. Most executions in Indonesia are for crimes involving narcotics trafficking. Elizabeth Pisani, author of “Indonesia, Etc.”, wrote in The New Yorker: “Indonesia, like its Southeast Asian neighbors Singapore, Malaysia, and Vietnam, and like China, Iran, and Saudi Arabia, makes no secret that drug-dealing convictions carry the death penalty. Travellers arriving by plane (that’s almost everyone in this island nation) are informed of the fact on every flight, and smoking guns grace banner ads from the Narcotics Control Board at all major airports. But until this year Indonesia rarely enforced the law. [Source: Elizabeth Pisani, The New Yorker, May 1, 2015]

Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, President of Indonesia from 2004 to 2014, granted clemency to four drug offenders on death row as of 2013. The most publicized case involved Schapelle Corby, an Australian convicted of smuggling marijuana in 2005. Her 20-year sentence was reduced in 2012 and was eligible for parole, but was still in prison.

Narcotics Law No. 35 of 2009

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Indonesia’s drug law, primarily based on the Narcotics Law No. 35 of 2009, enforces a zero-tolerance policy against illegal drugs, categorizing narcotics by addiction risk and prohibiting Group I substances (e.g., cannabis, heroin) for any use. Violations regarding possession, trafficking, or importing carry extreme penalties, including long prison sentences, life imprisonment, or the death penalty. Ignorance of the law is not a defense; foreign visitors are strictly subject to these laws.

Key aspects of Indonesia's Narcotics Law (Law No. 35/2009) include: Narcotics Classification: Narcotics are divided into three groups (Group I, II, and III). Group I includes high-risk drugs like heroin and cannabis, which are strictly forbidden, even for medical purposes. Zero Tolerance & Severe Punishment: Trafficking, manufacturing, or importing narcotics (Articles 113 & 114) can result in death, life imprisonment, or up to 20 years in prison. NPS Addition: The list of narcotics is frequently updated to include New Psychoactive Substances (NPS), such as synthetic cannabinoids and cathinones. Narcotics in Groups II and III may be used for specific medical or scientific purposes, but under strict, regulated supervision. For foreign travelers, carrying personal medication that contains narcotics requires a prescription and official documentation.

Indonesia’s Drug Policy Under Joko Widodo

Joko Widodo, the seemingly mild-mannered President of Indonesia from 2014 to 2024, stepped up Indonesia’s war on drugs backed by firey rhetoric and dodgy statistics and reasoning. Shortly after he took office in October 2014, he declared drug abuse a “national emergency” and denied clemency appeals from more than 60 death row inmates. Elizabeth Pisani, author of “Indonesia, Etc.”, wrote in The New Yorker: Over the fifteen years before Widodo took office, seven foreigners, and no Indonesians, were put to death for narcotics-related offenses. Under Widodo, in the past year alone twelve foreigners have been executed for drug smuggling, along with two Indonesians. The executions have been surprisingly popular at home. In a poll published the day before the latest round, eighty-six per cent of Indonesians said that they thought the government should proceed with the killings. Most respondents echoed Widodo’s rhetoric: wicked foreigners are tearing at the fabric of Indonesian society by luring young people into using drugs. The President backs up these phantoms with shocking numbers. Over fifty young Indonesians die every day because of drugs, and some four million Indonesians are abusing drugs. So the President says, and so the Indonesian press reports. Killing drug dealers supposedly will wipe out this terrible scourge and save a generation. [Source: Elizabeth Pisani, The New Yorker, May 1, 2015]

“Widodo’s death statistics, however, are so methodologically flawed that you could use them to teach critical data review to teen-agers. As for the prevalence of drug abuse, the most recent Indonesian survey that is in any way comparable with those of other countries shows that, in 2011, just four per cent of young Indonesians had ever tried drugs, including not only cannabis, speed, and heroin but also glue (sniffed), cough medicine (drank excessive amounts), and headache pills (mixed with soft drinks). That’s down by half from a similar survey five years earlier, and it pales in comparison with drug use among young people in the United States and Europe. In the U.S., thirty-five per cent of students of a similar age report having used cannabis, and sixteen per cent have used hard drugs, including ecstasy, coke, crack, LSD, and heroin. French sixteen-year-olds report even higher levels of drug use.

“Is Indonesia really facing a national catastrophe on the drug front? And, if so, is killing drug mules the best response? Other countries, with rates of drug use ten times higher, don’t seem to think so. They have other ways of reducing drug-related deaths: making sure that people suffering overdoses have access to life-saving naloxone, for example; providing injectors with easy access to sterile equipment so that they don’t get fatal infections; and offering less dangerous drugs, such as methadone, to help people get off more dangerous ones, such as heroin. (The U.S. is not a leader in drug-abuse harm reduction, but it is doing better than Indonesia.) These policies will all do more to reduce drug-related deaths than killing dealers, especially when the dealers are trying to take drugs out of the country, and off the local market, as was the case with the two Australians killed.

“That was not the only anomaly in their cases. The Australians’ former lawyer and the wife of one of the Nigerian prisoners both claimed that Indonesian judges had asked for bribes in exchange for lighter sentences. In the case of the Australians, the judges are said to have rescinded the offer after being told by Jakarta to hand down a death sentence (if true, that would also be illegal). The Brazilian smuggler had an established diagnosis of schizophrenia, which, like any other mental illness, should have swept the accused out of the path of a death sentence. These legal issues alone should be enough to trigger full reviews, and there are similar oddities in most of the other cases.

Chinese Drug Lord Forced to Burn $136 Million of Meth in Indonesia

In January 2015, major Hong Kong drug lord Wong Chi-ping, known by his initials of W.C.P., was arrested and more than 860 kilograms (1,900 pounds) of crystal methamphetamine seized, following a three-year investigation into a global syndicate. Three other Hong Kong residents, as well as a Malaysian and four Indonesians, were also detained in the "massive" bust , with all face the death penalty, National Narcotics Agency spokesman Sumirat Dwiyanto told AFP. [Source: Agence France-Presse, January 7 2015]

He said Indonesian authorities had been monitoring Wong since 2012 after intelligence officers learnt he was part of a major global drug ring. "W.C.P is a drug dealer who has been living in Indonesia for more than 15 years. He is part of an international syndicate, heading operations in Indonesia," Dwiyanto said. A statement from the agency said seven countries had been following the syndicate.

Dwiyanto said W.C.P had sent a fishing boat to sea from a port in west Jakarta to collect nearly 863 kilograms of crystal methamphetamine from a ship that had departed from the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou. The boat returned with the drugs, which had been packed into one-kilogram coffee sachets and concealed in 42 white rice sacks, he said. "The drugs were brought illegally into the port, transferred onto a vehicle and then driven to the car park of a shopping mall in Jakarta. Three buyers who were Hong Kong nationals were waiting in another car," he said. A Malaysian accomplice acted as a lookout. The high profile bust is one of the biggest seizure of drugs in Indonesian history.

A few weeks later, Nick Kirkpatrick wrote in the Washington Post, “Wong Chi-ping sat quietly. Handcuffed and wearing a black mask, the Chinese national watched as Indonesian authorities put 1,900 pounds of what was said to be his methamphetamine on a table. Alongside eight other suspects, he was paraded in front of the media before authorities forced him to burn his alleged $136 million stash in a large incinerator. [Source:Nick Kirkpatrick, Washington Post, February 2, 2015]

Foreigners Arrested, Sentenced to Death and Pardoned for Drugs in Indonesia

In 2003, a Dutch citizen of Chinese descent was sentenced to death for operating what police say was the largest ecstacy factory in Southeast Asia. He was found with 8,000 ecstasy tablets and ecstasy-making equipment which police said had churned out 15,000 pills a day for at lest three years.

In May 2019, a Frenchman was sentenced to death on Lombok, an island next to Bali, for smuggling 3 kilograms (6.6 pounds) of ecstasy before a higher court commuted his sentence to 19 years in prison. In May 2025, American basketball player Jarred Shaw, 35, who used to play in the Indonesian Basketball League for the Tangerhawks, was arrested in Indonesia on drug charges, possibly faces the death penalty or a lengthy prison sentence, after he received a package in the mail from Thailand containing 132 cannabis gummies. [Source: Mara Montalbano, Inside Edition, October 7, 2025]

In 2025, President Prabowo Subianto’s administration moved to repatriate several high-profile inmates, all sentenced for drug offences, back to their home countries In December 2025 , Indonesia took Mary Jane Veloso, who was found guilty of drug trafficking in 2010, off death row and returned her to the Philippines. It also sent the five remaining members of the “Bali Nine” drug ring, who were serving heavy prison sentences, back to Australia. [Source: The Telegraph, June 4, 2025]

Foreigners Sentenced to Death for Running and Ecstasy Factory in Indonesia

In May 2007, an Indonesian court sentenced nine men to death for producing millions of pills of the drug ecstasy in what police said was one of the biggest illegal drug production plants ever uncovered. According to Al-Jazeera The convicted men include five Chinese nationals, a Frenchman, a Dutchman and two Indonesians. The sentence handed down was harsher than that rendered a year before by a lower court, which ordered the execution of the two alleged Indonesian ringleaders while handing down lesser sentences to the others. Prosecutors said during the trials in 2006 year that the plant was among the largest ecstasy factories ever found in Southeast Asia, and recommended execution. They said the factory in Serang, 60 kilometers west of Jakarta, was capable of producing one million ecstasy pills, worth $11 million a week. The plant was raided by Indonesian police in late 2005. [Source: Al-Jazeera, May 5, 2007]

Benny Sudrajat, alias Andreas Indrijatno, and Budi Sucipto, alias Iming Santoso, were given death sentences from the start as they were deemed to be the ones running the factory, sophisticated drug laboratory in an abandoned warehouse. “The same court handed down life sentences to Frenchman Serge Areski Atloui and Dutch national Nicolaas Garnic Josephus for facilitating the production of the drug. They were also fined Rp 750 million each. Atloui, a technician, and Garnick, a chemist, were found guilty of aiding and abetting Benny Sudrajat in the production of the drug.[Source: The Jakarta Post, November 7 2006]

The Tangerang Court — known for being tough on drugs — has tried 12 people in connection with the ecstasy factory“Defense lawyer for Budi, Kafiudin Noor, told The Jakarta Post his client had not known Benny was intending to produce ecstasy at the warehouse. "It seems Benny kept my client (Budi) in the dark about his plan to produce ecstasy. All this time my client thought they were assembling a pharmaceutical factory,"" Kafiudin said. Aries Solapung, Benny's lawyer, said the panel of judges had not listened to the defense. ""It (the sentence) is too heavy,"" he said. "When police raided the factory, there was no evidence linking our clients with the drugs produced in the lab,"" Aprilson told the Post.

Frenchman on Death Row for 18 Years in Indonesia Returns Home

In February 2025, Serge Atlaoui, a 61-year-old Frenchman and father of four, returned to France after Jakarta and Paris agreed a deal to repatriate him on “humanitarian grounds” because he was ill. He had been row in Indonesia since 2007 for drug offences connected with teh ecstasy factory described above. His lawyer said he was "happy and calm" ahead of returning home. "After all these years of incarceration, this is the moment I was waiting for," his wife Sabine told RTL radio.[Source: Marchio Gorbiano, AFP, February 4, 2025]

AFP reported: Atlaoui was tight-lipped and wore a face mask at a news conference after he was driven in a black van from Jakarta's Salemba prison to the city's main airport and handed over to French police officers. French ambassador Fabien Penone thanked Indonesian authorities for allowing the transfer. Sedillot earlier described Atlaoui as "happy and calm" but said he would "need a little bit of time to reorganise himself".

Jakarta has left it to the French government to grant Atlaoui — the only Frenchman on death row in Indonesia — either clemency, amnesty or a reduced sentence. His return was made possible after an agreement between French Justice Minister Gerald Darmanin and his Indonesian counterpart, Yusril Ihza Mahendra, on January 24. In the agreement, Jakarta said they had decided not to execute Atlaoui and authorised his return on "humanitarian grounds" because he was ill. Atlaoui had been receiving weekly medical treatment at a hospital.

Atlaoui was arrested in 2005 at a factory in a Jakarta suburb where dozens of kilogrammes of drugs were discovered. He was accused by authorities of being a "chemist". A welder from Metz in northeastern France, he has always denied being a drug trafficker, saying that he was installing machinery in what he thought was an acrylic factory. "I thought there was something suspicious (about the factory)," Atlaoui told AFP in 2015.

Initially sentenced to life in prison, his sentence was reviewed by the supreme court and changed to death on appeal. He was due to be executed alongside eight others in 2015 but was granted a reprieve after Paris applied pressure and the Indonesian authorities allowed an outstanding appeal to proceed.

More Than 100, Including 2 Policemen, Arrested at Jakarta Nightclubs

In November 2013, as many as 125 people — including two police officers and a councilor from West Kalimantan — were arrested at two nightclubs in Jakarta on Friday night and Saturday morning after testing positively for illegal drugs. “At midnight, we targeted the Exotic Discotheque on Jl Mangga Besar Raya,” Arman Depari, the deputy director of the National Police’s crime division, said according to Kompas.com. “As many as 39 men and 19 women tested positive for drugs.” [Source:Jakarta Globe, November 23, 2013]

The Jakarta Globe reported: “At Exotic, officers picked up two fellow policemen who tested positive for Ecstasy: Brig. Wahyu Widodo from the Bekasi Police and First Brig. Supriyadi from the Pabuaran Police. Afterward, police raided the Crown discotheque on Jalan Pinangsia in Mangga Besar, West Jakarta. Officers arrested 42 men and 23 women after they tested positive for Ecstasy.

Among those were three Legislative Council members (DPRD) — two from Bali and one from Sambas, West Kalimantan. The two from Bali were released despite testing positive for drug use because they did not have any drugs on their person. However, the councilor from West Kalimantan was detained because officers found three Ecstasy pills in his possession.

“All of them were taken to the National Police’s drug division office in Cawang, East Jakarta, for further investigation.“Those who only tested positive for consuming narcotics will be sent home and given a warning,” Adj. Sr. Comr. Agustiyanto, deputy head of the National Police’s narcotics division, said on Saturday as quoted by Indonesian news portal Tribunnews.com. “But those who had drugs will be be investigated further.”

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons

Text Sources:“Encyclopedia of World Cultures Volume 5: East/Southeast Asia:” edited by Paul Hockings, 1993; “Culture and Customs of Indonesia” by Jill Forshee, Greenwood Press, 2006; National Geographic, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Smithsonian magazine, Encyclopedia.com, Library of Congress, Indonesia Tourism website (indonesia.travel), Indonesia government websites, Live Science, The Conversation, The New Yorker, Time, BBC, CNN, Reuters, Associated Press, AFP, Lonely Planet Guides, Google AI, Wikipedia, The Guardian and various websites, books and other publications.

Last updated April 2026