Indonesian authorities have arrested a Malaysian man suspected of being behind illegal logging operations in the eastern province of Papua, a report said yesterday.

Tie Sing Yew, 54, was detained on Saturday while trying to cross into Malaysia's Sarawak state through the Entikong border post in Indonesia's West Kalimantan province on Borneo island, the Media Indonesia daily said.

"Tie is a logging financier who has been hunted and whose name has been included in the (immigration) blacklist," Brigadier General Suharto, head of the national police force's anti-logging taskforce, was quoted as saying.

11 foreigners nabbed

Tie is suspected of masterminding the smuggling of illegally logged timber from Papua to Malaysia, as well as running illegal logging operations in Borneo, the paper said. Tie has denied the charges.

The anti-logging taskforce has already arrested 11 foreigners - 10 Malaysians and one South Korean - for suspected illegal logging activities in Papua and Borneo.

Indonesian officials say illegal logging costs the country over three billion dollars per year (RM11.4 billion), with timber barons now targeting remote Papua province as forests on Java and Sumatra islands have already been plundered.

Rapid deforestation has had devastating environmental consequences for both Indonesia and the Southeast Asian region, causing floods and landslides and shrouding nearby countries with haze from illegal fires set to clear land.