Law enforcement raises warning over "pink cocaine"
Three British nationals accused of smuggling over two pounds of cocaine into Indonesia were charged Tuesday in a court on the tourist island of Bali. They face the death penalty under the country's strict drug laws.
Convicted drug smugglers in Indonesia are sometimes executed by firing squad.
Jonathan Christopher Collyer, 28, and Lisa Ellen Stocker, 29, were arrested on Feb. 1 after customs officers halted them at the X-ray machine after finding suspicious items in their luggage disguised as food packages, said prosecutor I Made Dipa Umbara.
Umbara told the District Court in Denpasar that a lab test result confirmed that ten sachets of Angel Delight powdered dessert mix in Collyer's luggage combined with seven similar sachets in his partner's suitcase contained 2.19 pounds of cocaine, worth an estimated $368,000.
British nationals, from left, Phineas Float, Jonathan Collyer, and Lisa Stocker who are accused of smuggling nearly a kilogram (over two pounds) of cocaine into Indonesia are escorted by security officers before the start of their trial hearing at Denpasar District Court in Denpasar, Bali, on Tuesday, June 3, 2025.
Firdia Lisnawati / AP
Two days later, authorities arrested Phineas Ambrose Float, 31 after a controlled delivery set up by police in which the other two suspects handed the drug to him in the parking area of a hotel in Denpasar. He is being tried separately.
The drugs were brought from England to Indonesia with a transit in the Doha international airport in Qatar, Umbara said.
The group successfully smuggled cocaine into Bali on two previous occasions before being caught on their third attempt, said Ponco Indriyo, the Deputy Director of the Bali Police Narcotics Unit during a news conference in Denpasar on Feb. 7.
After the charges against the group of three were read, the panel of three judges adjourned the trial until June 10, when the court will hear witness testimony.
Both the defendants and their lawyers declined to comment to media after the trial. Speaking to the BBC in February, their lawyer, Sheiny Pangkahila, said if convicted, they could each face between 15-20 years in an Indonesian prison or the death penalty.
The British embassy in Jakarta did not immediately respond to an AFP request for comment.
About 530 people, including 96 foreigners, are on death row in Indonesia, mostly for drug-related crimes, the Ministry of Immigration and Corrections' data showed. Indonesia's last executions, of an Indonesian and three foreigners, were carried out in July 2016.
A British woman, Lindsay Sandiford, now 69, has been on death row in Indonesia for more than a decade. She was arrested in 2012 when 8.4 pounds of cocaine was discovered stuffed inside the lining of her luggage at Bali's airport. Indonesia's highest court upheld the death sentence for Sandiford in 2013.
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime says Indonesia is a major drug-smuggling hub despite having some of the strictest drug laws in the world, in part because international drug syndicates target its young population.
Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto's administration has moved in recent months to repatriate several high-profile inmates, all sentenced for drug offences, back to their home countries.
Frenchman Serge Atlaoui returned to France in February after Jakarta and Paris agreed a deal to repatriate him on "humanitarian grounds" because he was ill.
In December, Indonesia took Mary Jane Veloso off death row and returned her to the Philippines.
It also sent the five remaining members of the "Bali Nine" drug ring, who were serving heavy prison sentences, back to Australia.
According to Indonesia's Ministry of Immigration and Corrections, 96 foreigners were on death row, all on drug charges, before Veloso's release.
Meanwhile, in Sri Lanka, a British former flight attendant, Charlotte May Lee, was arrested on charges that she had more than 100 pounds of synthetic cannabis in her suitcases. She could face life in prison if convicted.
Agence France-Presse contributed to this report.
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