NEWS: Nine Australians Arrested in Bali Heroin Bust.

Originally posted by Xar Ke Zeth
Though it could help the Michelle Corby case, since she said she didn't have anything to do with heroin.

"We have to make the punishment as harsh as possible," he told a news conference at Bali police headquarters, where the eight men and one woman are being questioned.

He also revised down the quantity of drugs seized in the Sunday raids at the airport and a Kuta hotel, where four of the nine were caught.

A net amount of 8.65kg of heroin had been recovered, he said.

Initially, Indonesian police said the gross weight of the drugs was 11.25kg.

Colonel Sugiarto reiterated allegations that Mr Chan, 21, of Sydney, was the 'godfather' of an alleged heroin importation ring with partners in Australia.
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Indonesian police have revealed that at least three of the nine Australians accused of smuggling heroin claim they were forced to act under threat of harm to their families.

All have blamed their fellow accused, 21-year-old Andrew Chan.

The nine Australians are still in custody at police headquarters in Denpasar.Source

Catholic Cardinal George Pell says he will appeal for clemency if any of the nine Australians arrested in Bali for drug smuggling are convicted and given the death penalty.

He also said he would be prepared to take their case to new Pope Benedict XVI.
"I don't know whether they are guilty or not but I am certainly prepared to do that (ask for clemency)," Cardinal Pell told ABC's 7.30 Report.
Source.

7.30 Report.

Police raided the family home of Myuran Sukumaran, one of the Bali Nine, a day after the Indonesian authorities identified him as the leader of the drug-smuggling operation.

Six federal agents arrived at the 24-year-old's home in Auburn, western Sydney, and left with a large suitcase and several smaller items.
Australian Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty said the Australian end of the operation was aiming at the "Mr Bigs".

The Indonesian authorities have also seized four mobile phones from the ringleaders and asked Australian police for help to discover there passwords.

Every member of the Bali Nine now faces the death penalty, after police uncovered more damning evidence against them.

It has emerged that the man identified as the plot's alleged kingpin, Myuran Sukumaran, was once employed in the Federal Government's passport office in Sydney.
It is understood Australian Federal Police are investigating links between Sukumaran, the passport office and the travel documents used by members of the drug smuggling ring.

Australian Federal Police (AFP) code breakers are expected to be called on to break the pin-number locks on mobile phones used by the alleged Bali heroin smugglers.

Indonesian police say the Bali accused were given mobile phones and told to ring a contact in Sydney when they arrived.

The head of Bali's drugs squad, Bambang Sugiarto, says the smugglers were told to contact a man with the codename "Mr P" to make arrangements to hand over the haul.

Indonesian police say the man they suspect supplied heroin to the nine Australians in jail accused of drug smuggling has been killed in a shoot-out with police in Jakarta.

The country's national drug police say the suspect, Mann Singh Gali, was a Nepalese citizen living in Jakarta.

He had been wanted for involvement in a separate attempt to smuggle heroin from Jakarta to the United States on board a British Airways flight.

He was killed in the capital last night as police attempted to make an arrest.

Mobile phones seized from the Bali Nine helped lead federal police to make the first Australian arrests yesterday, with four people accused of at least three previous successful heroin runs into the country.

More than 50 federal agents and Customs officers took part in 14 raids in Brisbane and Sydney yesterday morning based on police interrogations of the accused Bali heroin smugglers and numbers extracted from their phones.

The lead AFP agent investigating the syndicate in Bali, Bruce Hill, said the investigation was close to making arrests at the top of the supply chain.

"We have a number of inquiries internationally with other law enforcement agencies," Mr Hill said.

"It's quite a large syndicate operating in the international area, so the syndicate itself could have been operating for many, many years," he said.

Police have identified one of the world's biggest drug syndicates as the supplier of heroin to the nine Australians arrested in Bali.

Investigators are targeting the Asian-based Crescent Moon, which has been smuggling heroin from Burma for years.

Australian Federal Police agents investigating the syndicate's link to the nine Australians being held in Bali are confident the criminals behind it will soon be caught. Bruce Hill, head of a six-member team of federal police agents in Bali, said the syndicate was "well organised and well structured".

"It has been operating for some time," he said yesterday.

Mr Hill said police "have some very relevant avenues of inquiry" about the syndicate that had smuggled large quantities of heroin to many Western countries.