Locals told to stay away from traders crossing border

Police have warned locals in Kokiri and Fly River, in Western, not to trade with people who cross the border illegally from Indonesia.
Gulf police commander Inspector Silva Sika told The National that the locals had been trading with illegal border crossers coming in from the Indonesian side.
He said police confiscated 15 fishing nets and a dinghy with a 40-horsepower outboard engine but the fishermen fled when police arrived
Sika said police investigations found that the illegal border crossers were going to local villages to buy barramundi and stone fish and deer testicles.
“This has being going on for many years but no one had knowledge of it until the police were alerted,” he said.
He said the foreigners were crossing the Indonesian border by Daru Island then to Gulf without being detected.
“I am appealing to the locals to stop entertaining outsiders to sell fish for their own money or the law will catch up with them soon,” he said.
He said it was an international security threat when cirtizens allow foreigners to enter the country illegally.
“We have only a 40-horsepower dinghy that cannot track the fishermen at sea because they have high-powered dinghies,” Sika said.
Sika said despite transportation problems, his officers still carried out their duties. He said police went to the villages to stop people crossing the border illegally.