JAKARTA, Indonesia — An American basketball participant for the Indonesian league was arrested for allegedly making an attempt to smuggle unlawful medication into the nation, police stated Thursday.
The Southeast Asian nation has extraordinarily strict drug legal guidelines, and convicted smugglers are generally executed by firing squad.
Jarred Dwayne Shaw, 34, a Dallas, Texas, native who performed collegiately for Oklahoma State and Utah State, was arrested Could 7, after police raided his house in Tangerang regency, simply outdoors the capital, Jakarta, and seized 132 items of hashish candies, stated Ronald Sipayung, the Soekarno-Hatta Airport police chief.
The arrest adopted a tip from the airport’s customs that reported Shaw had acquired a suspicious airway bundle from Thailand, Sipayung stated. Hashish has been decriminalized in Thailand since November 2024. Underneath Indonesia’s anti-drug legal guidelines, Shaw faces as much as life sentence or demise penalty if discovered responsible, Sipayung stated.
A video circulating on social media purportedly confirmed Shaw, carrying a black T-shirt and shorts, resisting as he’s being pushed away by police and shouting “Assist … assist!” when he was about to be arrested.
Shaw has performed for a number of golf equipment within the Indonesian Basketball League since 2022, and signed a contract with the Tangerang Hawks final yr. He advised police throughout interrogation that he wished to share the hashish sweet with fellow basketball gamers, in response to Sipayung.
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He stated the sweet contained a complete gross weight of 869 grams (30.6 ounces) of unlawful cannabinoid inside a bundle.
“We’re nonetheless working the investigation to uncover the worldwide medication community behind this case and to cease its distribution,” Sipayung stated.
Shaw didn’t make any assertion when he was introduced by the authorities at a information convention Wednesday carrying a detainee orange T-shirt and a masks together with his fingers tied.
Tangerang Hawks supervisor Tikky Suwantikno advised reporters on Thursday that they regretted what had been completed by Shaw and the membership had instantly fired him as he has breached the contract.
The Indonesian Basketball League banned Shaw for all times, stated its chair, Budisatrio Djiwandono.
“We don’t tolerate gamers, directors or anybody within the area concerned in medication. There is no such thing as a room for drug customers within the basketball world,” Djiwandono stated.
The United Nations Workplace on Medication and Crime says Indonesia is a significant drug-smuggling hub regardless of having a number of the strictest drug legal guidelines on this planet, partly as a result of worldwide drug syndicates goal its younger inhabitants.
About 530 individuals are on demise row in Indonesia, principally for drug-related crimes, together with 96 foreigners, the Ministry of Immigration and Corrections’ knowledge confirmed. Indonesia’s last executions, of an Indonesian and three foreigners, had been carried out in July 2016.
