Indonesian immigration chief Hendarsam Marantoko said the government was reassessing visa waiver arrangements following a surge in cases involving foreign nationals allegedly engaged in cyber fraud, online gambling and other illicit activities.

Authorities last week detained more than 500 suspects in two separate operations targeting an online gambling syndicate in Jakarta and a scam network in Batam in the eastern Riau Islands province, officials said.

Those arrested included nationals from Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, Laos and Myanmar, all of which currently benefit from Indonesia’s 30-day visa-free entry scheme. Chinese nationals were also among those detained, although China is not covered by the waiver policy.

“Cases of foreigners involved in illegal activities, including those coming from countries granted visa-free entry facilities, give rise to evaluation” of existing policies, Hendarsam said in a statement released by immigration authorities.

Investigators found that many suspects linked to the Jakarta gambling operation had entered Indonesia either under visa-free arrangements or through permits issued on arrival, according to officials.

Indonesia has intensified immigration enforcement in recent weeks as authorities seek to curb transnational cybercrime and illegal online betting operations, which have proliferated across parts of Southeast Asia.

Hendarsam said immigration authorities had conducted more than 6,700 administrative enforcement actions in recent weeks, including over 2,000 deportations and revocations of residence permits tied to immigration violations and criminal investigations.

Southeast Asian governments have faced mounting pressure to crack down on cross-border scam compounds and online gambling syndicates, many of which operate through regional networks involving foreign workers and digital financial transactions.

The suspects were detained at an office building in the Indonesian capital after police investigations linked the group to an online gambling enterprise that had allegedly operated for the past two months, officials said at a press conference.

According to Wira Satya Triputra, director of the Indonesian police force’s crime investigation unit, those arrested included 228 Vietnamese nationals, 57 Chinese citizens, 13 people from Myanmar, 11 from Laos, five from Thailand and three from Cambodia.

Wira said 275 of the detainees were being investigated under Indonesia’s criminal code provisions on gambling, which carry a maximum prison sentence of nine years. He added that most of the suspects were aware they had entered Indonesia to participate in online gambling activities primarily targeting customers outside the country.

Online gambling is prohibited in Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation, where authorities have stepped up enforcement efforts against digital gambling platforms and cross-border criminal syndicates amid concerns over financial fraud and illicit online operations.The arrests marked the second major enforcement operation involving foreign nationals in two days.

On Friday, Indonesian immigration authorities detained 210 foreigners on Batam island in Riau Islands province over allegations they were involved in online investment scams operating from an apartment complex near Singapore.

Interpol Indonesia official Untung Widyatmoko said there had been a recent shift in regional online gambling operations from Cambodian cities into Indonesia, reflecting changing enforcement patterns across Southeast Asia.

The latest raids underscore growing regional concern over organized cybercrime networks that have increasingly used Southeast Asian countries as operational hubs for online gambling, fraud and investment scams targeting international victims.

Mount Dukono, located on Halmahera island in eastern Indonesia, erupted on Friday morning, sending volcanic ash as high as 10 kilometers into the atmosphere, according to Indonesia’s volcanology authorities.

Local police said the victims included two Singaporean nationals and one Indonesian hiker who were inside a restricted exclusion zone near the crater when the eruption occurred. Indonesia’s search and rescue agency has continued to classify the three as missing while recovery efforts remain underway.Seventeen other climbers, including additional Singaporean nationals, were evacuated safely from the mountain on Friday.

The search operation was temporarily suspended late Friday because of continued eruptions and unstable conditions around the crater area. Authorities resumed the mission on Saturday with more than 100 personnel, including police officers, soldiers and drone operators.“We are racing in this search.

When the situation and condition is safe, we will approach the crater, and when an eruption occurs, we must secure all search personnel,” rescue official Iwan Ramdani said in a statement recorded near the Dukono monitoring station in Mamuya village.

Indonesia’s Centre for Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation said the volcano erupted several more times on Saturday, including one blast that produced an ash column reaching around three kilometers above the summit.

National disaster mitigation agency spokesperson Abdul Muhari said preliminary information indicated the bodies of the two Singaporean hikers were located approximately 20 to 30 meters from the crater rim. The location of the Indonesian hiker remained unknown.

Singapore’s foreign ministry said it was coordinating with its embassy in Jakarta to assist affected citizens and their families, according to local media reports.Authorities said the hikers had entered an area subject to a four-kilometer exclusion zone imposed around the crater since December 2024.

The restriction remains in place because of persistent volcanic activity at Mount Dukono, one of Indonesia’s most active volcanoes.The volcano has remained at level two on Indonesia’s four-tier alert system since 2008. Officials said warning signs and public advisories had instructed visitors to avoid the restricted zone.

Indonesia sits along the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” a region of intense seismic and volcanic activity caused by shifting tectonic plates. The archipelago has nearly 130 active volcanoes and experiences frequent eruptions and earthquakes.

The statement, submitted by Indonesia’s permanent representative to the United Nations, Umar Hadi, called for strengthened protection measures for peacekeeping forces amid escalating security risks. It also urged an end to violence and a return to negotiations to secure a peaceful resolution in Lebanon.

Indonesia’s Foreign Ministry said the safety of UN personnel was “non-negotiable,” stressing the need for the Security Council to use all available mechanisms to safeguard troops deployed in volatile environments.

The appeal follows a series of explosions in southern Lebanon in late March that killed three Indonesian peacekeepers serving under the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon and wounded several others, including personnel from France, Ghana, Nepal and Poland.

A separate blast inside a UN facility less than a week later injured three more Indonesian soldiers.The incidents prompted Jakarta to demand accountability and enhanced security guarantees for peacekeeping missions.

The Foreign Ministry described the attacks as “unacceptable” and called for an urgent meeting of troop-contributing countries to review safety protocols and operational conditions within UNIFIL.

President Prabowo Subianto condemned the attacks, saying such acts undermine peace efforts and result in the loss of lives of Indonesian personnel deployed abroad.

The UNIFIL mission, established to monitor hostilities and support stability in southern Lebanon, operates in a region that has seen renewed tensions in recent weeks, raising concerns over the safety of international peacekeepers.

The three soldiers, serving with the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, died in two incidents last week amid ongoing hostilities between Israeli forces and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.

Farizal Rhomadhon, 28, was killed on March 29 when a projectile exploded, while Zulmi Aditya Iskandar, 33, and Muhammad Nur Ichwan, 26, died a day later after a blast struck a UNIFIL logistics convoy, according to Indonesian authorities.

The soldiers were buried with full military honors in their hometowns, with coffins draped in the national flag and gun salutes marking the ceremonies. Family members gathered to mourn, scattering flower petals at the graves.

Zulmi was buried in a military cemetery in Bandung, West Java, while the other two were laid to rest in Central Java and Yogyakarta. Speaking after the funeral, Zulmi’s father said he accepted his son’s death with pride despite the loss.

Indonesian National Armed Forces commander Agus Subiyanto said the government had prepared compensation and entitlements for the families, including payments from the United Nations, in recognition of the soldiers’ service.

The bodies of the three peacekeepers arrived in Jakarta on Saturday and were received with military honors in a ceremony attended by President Prabowo Subianto, who condemned the attacks and described them as acts that undermine peace.

Indonesia’s Foreign Ministry called the incidents “unacceptable” and urged the United Nations Security Council to convene troop-contributing countries to review the situation and enhance protection for UN personnel.

Foreign Minister Sugiono also called for a thorough United Nations investigation into the attacks and demanded improved security arrangements for peacekeeping forces operating in southern Lebanon.

The funerals come days after another explosion at a UN facility near El Adeisse injured three additional Indonesian peacekeepers, underscoring mounting risks to international forces deployed in the area.

Parliament’s financial commission is reviewing candidates for five key posts at the Financial Services Authority, known locally as OJK, including chair, deputy chair and senior capital market supervisory roles.

The leadership overhaul follows the sudden resignation on Jan. 30 of the agency’s chair, deputy chair, and the chief and deputy chief supervisors of capital markets. The departures came days after index provider MSCI warned it could downgrade Indonesia’s classification to “frontier” market status because of concerns related to transparency and governance in the equities market.

MSCI’s warning triggered a wave of selling that wiped roughly $120 billion from Indonesia’s equity market within days. The pressure intensified after Moody’s downgraded the outlook on Indonesia’s sovereign credit rating.

Authorities have since moved to accelerate reforms aimed at restoring investor confidence. Among proposals put forward by OJK and the Indonesia Stock Exchange is a plan to gradually raise the minimum free float of shares held by public investors in listed companies to 15% over the next three years.

Ten candidates are being considered for the five regulatory posts, including interim OJK chair Friderica Widyasari Dewi and acting capital markets supervisor Hasan Fawzi.

Most nominees come from within OJK as well as from Indonesia’s central bank, the finance ministry and the state deposit insurer, reflecting the government’s effort to maintain continuity while implementing governance reforms.

The parliamentary panel’s selections must still be confirmed by the broader legislature during a vote scheduled for Thursday.

The leadership appointment process has been significantly expedited compared with the usual months-long selection cycle. Authorities said the timeline was shortened in response to ongoing volatility in global financial markets.

Finance Minister Purbaya Yudhi Sadewa said concerns over market stability and geopolitical tensions were behind the accelerated process.

“The situation is shaky. The war affects the markets, oil prices. It speeds up the need for more definitive persons at the OJK,” Purbaya told reporters.

The Boeing 737-500, en route to Pontianak in West Kalimantan, lost contact shortly after taking off just after 2.30 p.m. (0730 GMT), a search and rescue official told local television.

There were 56 passengers on board, including 10 children, an official of the national search and rescue agency Basarnas said. Local media said there were six crew.

Reliable tracking service Flightradar24 said on its Twitter feed that Flight SJ182 “lost more than 10,000 feet of altitude in less than one minute, about 4 minutes after departure from Jakarta”.

Agus Haryono, a rescue agency official, told Reuters that a search and rescue team had found debris suspected to be from the plane in the waters north of Jakarta, but it had not been confirmed that it was from the flight.

Sriwijaya Air, an Indonesian airline, said in a statement it is still gathering more detailed information regarding the flight before it can make a fuller statement.

A Boeing spokeswoman said, “We are aware of media reports from Jakarta, and are closely monitoring the situation. We are working to gather more information”.

Surachman, a local government official, told Kompas TV that fishermen found what appeared to be the wreckage. Other channels showed pictures of suspected wreckage.

“We found some cables, a piece of jeans, and pieces of metal on the water,” Zulkifli, a security official, told CNNIndonesia.com.

Nurhasan, a fisherman in the area known as Thousand Islands, told local media that he and his crew had found several pieces of metal.

The aircraft was 27 years old, according to registration details included in the Flightradar24 tracking data.

It was raining at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport at the time of take-off for Pontianak, around 740 km (460 miles) away.

Video images from the airport showed pictures of relatives of the passengers in tears as they awaited news of the fate of the aircraft.

A Boeing 737 MAX operated by Indonesian airline Lion Air crashed off Jakarta in late 2018, killing all 189 passengers and crew. The plane that lost contact on Saturday is a much older model.

Search Operation

Rescue official Agus said 50 people were taking part in the search and that they would keep searching into the night.

Founded in 2003, Jakarta-based Sriwijaya Air group flies largely within Indonesia.

The airline has a solid safety record until now, with no onboard casualties in four incidents recorded on the Aviation Safety Network database, though a farmer was killed when a Boeing 737-200 left the runway in 2008 following a hydraulic problem.

The Boeing 737 is the world’s most-sold family of aircraft and has undergone several makeovers since it entered service in 1968.

The 737-500 is two generations of development before the most recent 737 MAX, which has been embroiled in a worldwide safety crisis following crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia. It does not use the software system implicated in those crashes.

Nonetheless, experts say planes such as Sriwijaya’s leased 737-500 are being phased out for newer fuel-saving models. Civil jets typically have an economic life of 25 years, meaning they become too expensive to keep flying beyond that compared to younger models, but they are built to last longer.

Around 200 employees and their families of state electricity department Perusahaan Listrik Negara (PLN) gathered at Tajung Lesung beach for year-end celebrations, where the rockstars of rock-band Seventeen were performing, when the Tsunami hit them unexpectedly.

The devastating tsunami has claimed over 168 lives, while hundreds have been injured, and the death rates keep rising.

Among the dead are four members of the band – bassist M Awal Purbani, guitarist Herman Sikumbang, road manager Oki Wijaya, and crewmember Ujang, while the band’s drummer is still missing.

Zack, a crewmember of the band said in his Instagram post, “Underwater I could only pray – Jesus Christ help.”

“In the final seconds I almost ran out of breath,” he added. Eventually, he survived by clinging to part of the collapsed stage.

Yulia Dian, manager of the band told Reuters, “the survivors are treated at local hospitals and clinics, but they cannot return to Jakarta due to road blockade.”

“They’d been sharing stories they were having fun at the beach and we didn’t expect this,” he added.

The cause of the tsunami is attributed to the underwater landslide after the eruption of the Anak Krakatau volcano.