While the family of alleged drug smuggler Antony de Malmanche does not believe he was smart enough to pull off a drug trafficking operation, Indonesian police are now saying de Malmanche is part of an international drugs ring, reports New Zealand’s ONE News.
Apparently Jakarta narcotics investigators were tracking 52-year-old de Malmanche for months, before he even flew from Hong Kong to Bali with the alleged 1.7 kilograms of meth in his backpack, according to reports.
Once de Malmanche arrived in Bali on Monday last week, the New Zealand man was tagged as a cog in an international drugs ring, says Bali Police Commissioner Hery Wiyanto.
“He’s been a target of the narcotics drugs smuggling division a long time before he was arrested,” Wiyanto told Bali-located ONE News correspondent Steve Marshall.
De Malmanche agreed to be used by police in an undercover sting operation to bring officers to a pre-arranged meeting with a woman named April at a hotel in Kuta, but April was a no-show, reports ONE News.
De Malmanche was hoping April would lead them to Jakarta to meet “Jessie,” a woman whom he had reportedly been dating online and had even hoped to marry. It’s this woman who de Malmanche’s family believe scammed him and “led him astray.”
For months, email and text conversations between de Malmanche and Jessie, along with two other men, Larry and James, were being tracked by investigators.
“There’s four other people we cannot arrest at this stage,” Wiyanto said.
The other news about de Malmanche is that he was taken from his police cell in Denpasar to a hospital for a reported “hip complaint.”
Photo by AFP
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