KLANG: Four local men were arrested for processing, selling and distributing ketum water (mitragynine) after mistaking police personnel for customers at a house around Pulau Indah, Port Klang near here last Sunday (Dec 12).
South Klang district police chief ACP Cha Hoong Fong said one of the suspects had even asked a police personnel how many bottles he wanted to purchase before the police team had a chance to identify themselves.
Cha said the four suspects, aged 30 to 33, were packing the ketum water when they were arrested in the raid on a semi-detached house at around 12.10 am to 2 am.
The police also found a store and the location where they processed the liquid at the house, and seized 600 litres of packed ketum water, 20 kilogrammes of ketum leaves, 583.2 litres of suspected kodien liquid (cough mixture), ketum water processing equipment and RM250 in cash from suspected sales.
“Police estimate the total value of seizures to be around RM12,000,” he said during a media conference at the South Klang district police headquarters here today.
The suspects have been arrested under Section 30(3) of the Poisons Act 1952 and have had their remands extended for further investigation.
In other developments, Cha said the police has managed to bust a gang believed to be behind 20 cases of snatch theft and robberies around South Klang, following the arrests of four local men on Dec 9.
The arrests of the suspects, 26 to 42, followed a complaint lodged by a local 55-year-old man in Lorong Resak, Taman Palm Grove near here after he was approached from behind by two men, believed to be the suspects, on a motorcycle, who then snatched his sling bag and escaped.
He said the gang leader, 40, had been held under the Prevention of Crime Act 1959 previously but was still committing snatch theft and robberies around Klang.
“The suspect had been placed under police surveillance at Central Seberang Perai police station, Penang and has been rearrested along with three other suspects last Thursday,” he said, adding that all of them have been remanded till Dec 19. — Bernama