Bali defends Australian police for drug bust

CANBERRA - Criticism of the Australian Federal Police (AFP) for allowing nine Australians allegedly involved in a heroin smuggling operation to be arrested in Indonesia was unfair, Bali's chief of police said.

The AFP has been widely criticised in Australia for allowing the arrests to take place in a country where the death penalty could apply.

However General Made Mangku Pastika said he was pleased with the cooperation between the countries.

"I have to thank the Australian Federal Police because they gave the information very early," General Pastika told Channel Nine.

"There is no reason to criticise the Australian Federal Police or whatever because we agreed already that narcotics, drugs, is a trap for the global civilisation.

"We have to combat that whenever we can."

Indonesian police yesterday alleged that Sydney martial arts expert Myuran Sukumaran, 24, was the head of the group of nine Australians they accuse of trying to smuggle 8.65kg of heroin from Bali into Australia.

The man initially believed to be the gang's "Godfather" -- 21-year-old Andrew Chan -- was in fact Sukumaran's deputy, Colonel Bambang Sugiarto said.

General Pastika today said that with the group under constant surveillance since their arrival in Bali a fortnight before their arrest, an investigation had been launched to uncover why authorities had missed the transfer of the drugs.

He said many questions still needed answering over the source of the heroin.

Indonesian authorities suspect the group was part of a much larger international operation which had imported the drugs from northern Thailand.

"There are some questions still left after the arrest of these nine people," he said.

"We want to know where this heroin came from, how long these narcotics had been in Bali and who are the people who organised this in Bali.

"It is not produced in Indonesia so it must be from abroad."

Five of the nine were arrested at Denpasar airport on April 17, with Chan being taken off a plane waiting to leave for Sydney.

The other four were arrested a short time later in a Kuta hotel.

- AAP