Police arrested four gangs of iron thieves contaminated with radioactive cesium-137 in the modern industrial zone of Cikande, Serang, Banten. The attacker transported 200 kilograms of iron from the warehouse to a scrapyard in Bandung district, Serang.
“The stolen items were of different types with a total of about 200 kilograms. All of them were returned to the temporary storage of PT PMT. Thank God, these items did not have time to circulate outside the area and are still intact,” said Deputy Inspector General of the Ministry of Environment (KLH) Pol Rizal Irawan of the Serang Police, Thursday (12/11/2025).
According to Rizal, the PT PMT warehouse is a temporary storage warehouse. The government will create a permanent warehouse to store items exposed to radiation.
“Currently, the evidence is in intermediate storage, namely a temporary warehouse. Later there will be permanent storage. This is being discussed with Bapeten and BRIN, as they have the authority to determine the buildings and storage standards,” he said.

Rizal said BRIN and Bapeten were still looking for a suitable location. Several criteria must be taken into account.
“Many criteria must be met, for example not being in a seismic zone, not being in an area prone to flooding and meeting the technical requirements for storing radionuclides,” he said.
Previously, the Serang Police and the Cikande Police discovered a case of theft of scrap iron contaminated with radioactive cesium-137 at PT PMT. The iron was an object collected by the Cesium-137 Task Force during the decontamination of the Cikande area.
Police arrested four people in connection with the theft case. Two of them are PT PMT security officers.

Serang Police Chief AKBP Condro Sasongko said that initially his party received information from social media regarding the alleged iron theft at PT PMT. The company is a storage location for goods contaminated with radioactive cesium-137 resulting from the task force’s operations in the Cikande Modern Industrial Zone.
“The operational team of the Cikande Police Criminal Investigation Unit immediately carried out an investigation and finally succeeded in arresting the perpetrators,” said AKBP Condro, accompanied by Cikande Police Chief AKP Tatang, Wednesday (10/12/2025).

Initially, the police arrested the attacker with the initials RO (26) on Monday (12/8). RO is the main player who takes out the iron scraps from the storage location.
“According to RO’s statement, the police arrested two PT PMT security officers, namely SA and MZ, residents of Bandung subdistrict. Both are strongly suspected of having contributed to the theft process by facilitating access to the radioactive waste storage area,” he said.
Furthermore, the police arrested the collector with the initials SM (29 years old) in Bandung District, Serang Regency. SM has a scrapyard that accepts stolen iron contaminated by radioactivity.

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