Langkat Regent Earns IDR 177.5 billion from Human Cage, LPSK Estimates

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The Witness and Victim Protection Agency (LPSK) deputy chairman Edwin Partogi Pasaribu estimated that inactive Langkat Regent Terbit Rencana Perangin Angin or TRP pocketed IDR 177.5 billion from committing modern slavery. The number, he explained, refers to the statement by the North Sumatra Police Chief that there were at least 600 victims in Terbit's cage for 10 years.

"TRP earned benefits as he did not pay those people [for their works] totaling IDR 177,552,000,000," said Edwin in a written statement on Thursday, March 10, 2022.

Edwin added that Terbit took advantage of the severe condition of drug addicts to gain profits by not paying their wages as laborers. The workers must also face the harshness of living in human cages based on the results of coordination, investigation, and studies from January 27 to March 5, 2022.

Those who lived in the prison cells, said Edwin, had no chance to return to their homes. This was exacerbated by their fear of Terbit who was a regional head.

From the findings, the LPSK team strongly suspected an act of slavery in Terbit's cage that was said as a rehabilitation facility for narcotics addicts.

"The total control really cut off the caged occupants from their families. In fact, two parents of the victims who died [in the cage] were not allowed to see them,"he said.

Though there was an agreement signed by the family and the person in charge of the cage, "in practice, getting out of the cage is only possible if bribing the head of the prison, run away, or die," he said.

Those who ran away also faced consequences for being searched and forcibly apprehended by the hunter team hired by Terbit Rencana and his son Dewa and local officials. This was revealed during the joint investigation. "The hunter team also threatened the family of the victim who ran away to replace them in the cage," Erwin said.

M ROSSENO AJI