The <font color=#FF0000>Gangs</font> of Jakarta

The Gangs of Jakarta

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Conflicts, disputes, the underworld of gambling, prostitution, drugs, and debt collection, opened up vast opportunities for gangsters. They offer private “security services.” They set up companies as fronts for their operations. Some even purport to be legal aid bureaus. Fights between different gangs erupt frequently, such as the recent bloody street brawl on Jalan Ampera.

Tempo looks at the main players in this “business of violence.” Today, one of their biggest money-spinners is land acquisition, and the Kei and the Flores-Ende gangs seem to be in firm control, at least for the moment.

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LOGO’S hands gripped the handle of the machete protruding out of his stomach. His right thumb was hanging off by a sliver of skin, while blood poured from the five stab wounds to his head. “I crawled upstairs to get away,” recalled Logo Vallenberg, 38, from Timor, one of the partisans in a bloody fight between two gangs near Bumi Serpong Damai in Banten, last April. “My guys gathered on the third floor,” he said.

That morning, Logo and

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