Nine Malaysian nationals have been detained for allegedly financing massive timber smuggling operations from the remote eastern Indonesian province of Papua, police said today.

They were among a total of 69 people - 60 of them Indonesians - recently named as suspects following a police operation targeting illegal logging rings in the resource-rich province, said spokesman Ariyanto Budiharjo.

Last month the London-based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) said it had uncovered massive timber smuggling from Papua to China, describing it as the world's largest logging racket involving the valuable merbau wood species.

It said 300,000 cubic meters of merbau - a hardwood mainly used for flooring - is being smuggled out of Papua every month to feed China's timber processing industry.

The EIA said illegal logging in Papua involved Indonesian military and civilian officials, Malaysian logging gangs and multinational companies, brokers in Singapore and dealers in Hong Kong.

"It has been ascertained that they are involved in the financing part of the operation," Budiharjo told reporters.

Of the 69 suspects, only 20 were detained including the Malaysians. The rest were allowed to go free on condition they report regularly to police.

Budiharjo said four police officers were being investigated for allegedly taking bribes from timber barons.

Corrupted officers

Police also seized evidence in the form of 326,000 cubic meter of logs and cash worth around four trillion rupiah (US$425 million), he said.

The smuggling of merbau was worth one billion dollars a year based on the wood's value in the West, EIA said.

The EIA said syndicates pay around US$200,000 per shipment in bribes to ensure the contraband logs are not intercepted in Indonesian waters. Indonesia has banned the export of logs to curb illegal logging.

The Indonesian environmental group Telapak, which worked together with the EIA in the investigation also said that "there's no denying that military officers are involved in illegal logging."