People-smuggling baron Ali Cobra seized in action

ONE of the biggest fish in Indonesia's people-smuggling racket has been netted, after police raided a house in the eastern port city of Makassar.

The 30-year-old - known to asylum seekers the world over as Ali Cobra and described by Indonesian authorities as the "Noordin M.Top" of the trafficking racket, in reference to the regional terror tsar who has eluded capture for years - was seized on Monday night.

Ali Cobra, also operating under the name Labasa Ali, was in the process of organising a trip to Australia for 10 Afghan asylum seekers, some of whom had previously tried to make the perilous trip but had been detained by Indonesian police.

All 10 Afghan men, as well as the alleged people-smuggler, were captured in the swoop. News of the arrest comes as Australia finds itself confronting a new wave of boat arrivals.

On Tuesday, Border Protection Command intercepted a boat carrying 50 asylum seekers - the 11th such vessel to be detected this year. And late on Tuesday night, four asylum seekers found on a beach on Deliverance Island in the Torres Strait arrived at Christmas Island. The men - two Afghans, a Sri Lanklan and an Indian - were transported on a commercial flight from Perth.

Ali Cobra has established a dominant hold over the trade in recent years; according to one senior Indonesian immigration official who spoke on condition of not being identified, "in almost every case in recent times he is mentioned".

This includes an ill-fated attempt in January by a group of 18 Afghans, Pakistanis and Burmese to sail in a small fishing boat from Rote Island, west of Timor, to Ashmore Reef. Nine of those on board, including a nine-year-old boy, died when the boat sank.

One of the 10 Afghans arrested this week used a hidden mobile phone to tell The Australian from his immigration detention cell - having been returned there after Monday night's raid - that it was "absolutely" the Rudd Government's relaxed policy on boatpeople that was driving the surge in arrivals by sea.

"Absolutely. We, like everybody who tries to go, we know the detention regulations have been lifted since the fall of John Howard," said Kabul man Gulistan Ali, 32.

"We know the new Government has condemned the actions of the previous one, and has made the policies much easier for asylum seekers. We know this."

Mr Ali said he and two fellow Afghans escaped from the Indonesian detention centre about a week ago by scaling a 20m wall, leaping to the ground, hiding in dense jungle for two days and then walking 60km to Makassar, where they were contacted by phone and given an address to meet their handler.

Police swooped when the group assembled at the house.

Gulistan Ali and his two fugitive companions had previously tried to make the dangerous sea crossing on February 2, when they were arrested in the southeast Sulawesi port of Bau-Bau, preparing to board a small wooden boat.

All three had been in the detention centre, near Makassar city, since then. Gulistan Ali said the "difficult psychological situation" of being incarcerated in the "brutal conditions" there had triggered his second illegal attempt to reach Australia.

Gulistan Ali said he had paid "around $US9000" ($12,000) in total to people-smugglers since arriving in Indonesia early this year; another of the trio, Ahmad Ghahera, 25, said he paid about $US8000. Both men handed over most of that money on arrival in Jakarta, after flying from Kabul via Kuala Lumpur.

They had obtained visas from the Indonesian embassy in Kabul; there have been claims made of officials there providing the entry documents for up to $US1500. Indonesia's foreign ministry denies that allegation.

Gulistan Ali, who has a wife and two toddlers in Afghanistan, said he knew there was "less than a 50 per cent chance of succeeding, of not drowning" in the attempt to reach Ashmore Reef in Australia's northwestern waters, both in the one planned for this week and that of three months ago.

However, his life, he said, "is already ruined. Either I die - and I'm not concerned if that happens - or I secure a future for my children."

However, Gulistan Ali warned that even a figure as significant as Ali Cobra should not be seen as the end of the trail in the people-smuggling business operating out of Indonesia.

"It's a very organised mafia. But the organiser of it absolutely does not come before the people. They stay behind the curtain.

"I understand that people are very often cheated. They hand over their money and then the smugglers just report them to the authorities, to the police."

The majority of the $US9000 he had paid went, he claimed, to a smuggler "who has not been arrested". Also arrested this week in Jakarta was alleged people-smuggler Sajjad Hussein, thought to have been responsible for organising a boatload of asylum seekers intercepted in Australian waters on April 29.