Bali airport customs officer allegedly extorts tourist for using phone in arrivals hall
Indonesian Customs and Immigration officers are facing investigation after handing out fines to tourists.
A Taiwanese tourist alleges a Bali border agent attempted to extort $6300 from him upon his arrival at Denpasar airport.
The tourist, who had freshly arrived on holiday from Taipei, was stopped by the official as he queued up for customs declarations in the arrivals hall. He was accused of taking pictures in the line, which the officer said carried an on-the-spot fine of 600 Indonesian lakh rupiah - about $6300.
The tourist said he was taking a photo of the queues for his cab driver, to explain why they were running late.
Speaking to Taiwanese news station TVBS, the tourist said that he saw officers try to pull the same trick on another traveller from Burma.
“[You are] not allowed to take pictures at the Indonesian customs office. You’ll be deported,” tourists were reportedly told.
The visitor claims he was taken to a room to discuss the fine.
His suspicions were further raised when the officer was prepared to haggle. Eventually, he paid $430 and was allowed to enter the country.
“It feels like they were exploiting tourists,” he said.
“There should be Taiwanese officials to help tourists who find themselves caught in this kind of situation.”
On Thursday night, the Department of Ditjen Imigrasi said they were “investigating” the incident at Ngurah Rai International Airport, Denpasar.
Head of public relations and customs counseling subdirectorate Hatta Wardhana told CNN Indonesia taking photos in a restricted area such as airport customs and screening was against the law, as detailed in PM 80/2017. However, it was not up to customs agents to hand out fines or threaten deportation.
Customs told CNN that they would “try to co-ordinate with various parties to find out the real problem and communicate with those concerned”. Wardhana said the agency was also collaborating with the Indonesian Economic and Trade Office (IETO) in Taipei to get to the bottom of the incident.
This is not the first time that customs officials have been accused of handing out unwarranted or inflated “fines” to travellers.
Last month, an Indonesian woman accused customs officials of stopping her to pay duties on a trophy she had returned with from a singing competition in Japan.
The singer said she was heart-broken, having to pay for her own trophy.
The Direktorat Jenderal Imigrasi and Direktorat Jenderal Bea Dan Cukai were contacted for comment on the incident.