Major Raid on Kampung Bahari: 1,800 Personnel Deployed, 26 Detained, Ecstasy Press Machine and Firearms Seized

JAKARTA — Kampung Bahari in Tanjung Priok, North Jakarta, was once again the target of a massive police sweep. On Sunday (11/1/2026) at around 05:30 Western Indonesia Time, a joint team comprising the Metro Jaya Regional Police's Narcotics Investigation Directorate, the National Police's Criminal Investigation Agency (Bareskrim), the National Narcotics Agency (BNN), and the Mobile Brigade (Brimob) swept through Kampung Bahari and Kampung Muara Bahari, long known as drug trafficking hotspots in Jakarta.

According to an ANTARA report cited by Espos.id, the number of personnel deployed reached 1,816 — although some other reports rounded the figure to around 1,800. The timing and personnel count were also confirmed by North Jakarta Metro Police Chief, Senior Commissioner Adhe Hariadi. The operation took an unusual approach: officers rode the electric commuter train (KRL/Commuter Line) from Tanjung Priok Station, then swept the railway-side areas where drug trafficking was reported to take place.

The operation's results were announced by Metro Jaya's Narcotics Investigation Director, Senior Commissioner Bismo Teguh Prakoso. He stated that 26 people were detained in the sweep, as quoted by detikcom. However, figures differ across reports: ANTARA and several other outlets, including kumparan as referenced by Paragraf News, reported 27 arrests. RingkasNow notes this discrepancy across media reports explicitly rather than picking one figure unilaterally.

In terms of evidence, the police haul was notably large and varied. Officers seized hundreds of grams of crystal meth, marijuana, and thousands of ecstasy pills. Most strikingly, they found one ecstasy pill press machine along with packaging equipment — a strong indication that the area was not merely a transaction point but also a production site. Police also confiscated bongs and other drug paraphernalia, firearms, bladed weapons including machetes (golok), sickles (celurit), and swords, as well as cash suspected to be drug proceeds, as reported by KakiNews and Paragraf News.

Kampung Bahari is no stranger to such operations. On September 26, 2023, a similar raid deployed 204 personnel, and on March 10, 2024, another sweep involved around 200 personnel. Compared with those two earlier operations, this sweep was many times larger — both in personnel numbers and in the breadth of inter-agency coordination. This recurring pattern shows that Kampung Bahari remains a consistent focus of anti-narcotics enforcement, and that trafficking networks there keep trying to bounce back after each raid.

Metro Jaya Police Chief, Commissioner General Dadang Hartanto, stressed in his statement that the operation is not over. He said police are still hunting several targets who escaped during the sweep, as reported by InformasiRaja. Beyond that, Dadang pushed for a total restructuring or revitalization of the Kampung Bahari area in cooperation with the North Jakarta municipal government. In his view, law enforcement alone will not suffice: the area needs environmental recovery and stronger social resilience so it does not remain a drug trafficking den.

The discovery of the ecstasy press machine is a significant note in this operation. The presence of production equipment shows that the narcotics supply chain in the area has reached the stage of local manufacturing — no longer mere distribution from outside. This fact deserves serious attention, as domestic production can drive prices down, widen market reach, and make networks harder to dismantle since they do not depend on inter-regional supply.

For the public, what matters next is the continuation of legal proceedings against the detained suspects, and how serious the area revitalization plan announced by the police chief proves to be. History shows enforcement in Kampung Bahari tends to repeat; the challenge now is ensuring this major operation does not end as a one-off spectacle, but is followed by concrete steps — from environmental improvement and community development to sustained monitoring — so the area can truly recover.