Bali Deports Family Who Claimed God-Given Right To Break Into Canggu Villa

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Authorities in Bali have announced details of the deportation of a Moldovan family who were detained in March 2022 for breaking into a Canggu villa. According to officials, the family of five broke into a villa that had been left empty for most of the pandemic. At the time of their arrest and interrogation, the family claimed that the home was given to them by God.

Immigration officials in Bali have had a hard time trying to deport the family of five. Known only by their initials, the family is referred to as DD, 44, EE, 36, EE, 32, the eldest child DM, 10, and AE, 6. Speaking to the media on Wednesday, 21st December Head of the Ministry of Law and Human Rights Bali, Anggiat Napitupulu, explained the details of their case.

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He said, “The case was reported in March 2022 where they, together with a foreigner from Russia with the initial AD (24), broke through and forced their way into a villa owned by local residents by force”. The villa in question is located in the super popular area of Canggu, Pererenan Village. Napitupulu continued, “According to the villa owner, his inn has not been operating for more than two years due to the pandemic. In fact, the stranger entered it by breaking the villa door in the early hours of the morning”.

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When the villa owner and community leaders heard about the break-in, they visited the villas as soon as they could. When they asked why the family had broken in, they replied with a shocking answer. Napitupulu shared, “In the morning, the owner and Pererenan Village [leaders] met the foreigners. But they admitted that the villa was theirs given by God”.

Realizing this was a case for a higher authority, the villa owner and village leaders contacted Badung Police and the Immigration Office. Napitupulu explained that the authorities visited the villa and arrested the family. “They too were [all] taken to the TPI Denpasar Class I Immigration Office on March 28, 2022 to take further action according to immigration regulations”.

As Immigration authorities began to process the family’s deportation paperwork, they found that they had further hurdles in their way. According to Napitupulu, there were problems with arranging flights to Moldova and Russia, as well as issues with two of the family passports. 36-year-old EE claimed to have lost their passport, while 44-year-old DD claimed their passport was damaged in a fire.

Napitupulu described how the family and their Russian accomplice were not cooperative with authorities during the investigation. As a result of their lack of cooperation, the issues with flights and passports, they had to spend over nine months detained in the Immigration Office holding facilities. The process eventually involved cooperating with embassies in Tokyo.

24-year-old AE was deported to Russia in September 2022, and the family started their journey back to Moldova on the evening of Tuesday, 29th December. The four adults have been added to Indonesia’s blacklist and will not be permitted to return to Indonesia for a considerable amount of time.

During the press briefing, Napitupulu also shared data from the Immigration Office regrind the number of deportations of foreign nations from Bali in 2022. He confirmed, “In the Bali Immigration area, from 2022 until today (20/12), 194 foreigners were deported”.

He was also able to confirm the reasons why people had been deported from the Island of the Gods. He said, “There are one or two people who are ex-convicts after serving their detention period, they are given to immigration, and we will automatically deport them. There are also one or two whose terms indicate activities that are not in accordance with their residence visa, we impose deportation-immigration administrative action. But most of them are overstays“.