Shopee cracks down on illegal drug sellers in Indonesia: report

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Shopee has blocked the accounts of sellers engaged in the trade of illegal drugs and food on its platform in Indonesia, according to a local media report.

According to a report on detik.com, this move comes after Indonesia’s Food and Drug Monitoring Agency (BPOM) discovered sales of illegal drugs and supplements on the platform.

In its investigation, BPOM detected a rogue account named “apotik_resmi” that had sold various illegal drugs with a sales volume of over 10,000 packages and a transaction value of 10.2 billion rupiah (US$686,000).

Illegal drug trading through Shopee was also discovered in March 2023, when the narcotics investigation unit of the Pandeglang Regional Police in the Banten Province arrested a dealer of restricted drugs who claimed to have obtained tramadol hydrochloride and hexymer through the app.

“We do not tolerate the sale of prohibited products on our platform. We also require all sellers to comply with the existing laws and regulations, as well as the rules applicable on our platform,” a Shopee Indonesia spokesperson told Tech in Asia.

To combat this issue, Shopee said it has implemented solutions such as automatic keyword filtering and a dedicated content team to review products that may potentially violate the rules.

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Currency converted from Indonesian rupiah to US dollar: US$1 = 14,867 rupiah.

A version of this article was originally published by Annissa Mutia on Tech in Asia Indonesia.

Update (June 12, 7:52 p.m. SGT): This article was updated to include a statement from Shopee Indonesia.