Police rescues teenager from mail-order bride scheme to China

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3 hours ago

Tasikmalaya, West Java (ANTARA) – Tasikmalaya District Police in West Java have rescued a 16-year-old teenager from a suspected mail-order bride trafficking scheme involving a Chinese national in Tangerang, Banten.

“She is believed to be a victim of the mail-order bride scheme as stipulated in the Sexual Violence Crimes Act,” Tasikmalaya Police Chief Adjunct Senior Commissioner Ade Papa Rihi said in a press conference on Thursday.

A vocational high school student, the victim is a resident of Bantarkalong Sub-district in Tasikmalaya. Her family filed a missing person report with the police on October 2 after failing to find her themselves several days after her disappearance.

Upon investigation, conducted with assistance from the National Police Headquarters in Jakarta, the police successfully found the victim at an apartment in the Pantai Indah Kapuk (PIK) 2 area in Tangerang on Sunday (Oct. 11).

Initial questioning concluded that the victim was suspected to have fallen into a mail-order bride scheme involving a Chinese national identified as XM alias MJ, aged 35.

The police suspected the apartment where the victim stayed would be used as a rendezvous point for them. “The victim stayed at the PIK 2 apartment while waiting for the arrival of Mr. XM alias MJ,” he noted.

The victim had intensive communication with the Chinese national, who lured her with money to leave her home in Tasikmalaya for the Tangerang apartment without notifying her parents.

“(She left) with the money given to her without her parents’ knowledge. Our investigation found that she was alone at the apartment,” Rihi said.

The police will continue investigating the case to probe the involvement of any other individuals outside the victim and the Chinese national, he said.

They are also cooperating with the immigration ministry and the National Police’s International Relations Division to determine XM alias MJ’s position.

As the probe continues, the victim and her family, who have been reunified, will remain under police protection, he added.