Four Malaysians have been arrested in Indonesia after allegedly being caught with ecstasy worth more than five million dollars, the Indonesian national police chief said today.

Lim Jit Wee, 41, Chua Lik Chang, 52, Lim Piek Kiong, 47, and Thio Bok An, 60, had planned to set up an ecstasy factory with the help of Chinese experts, General Sutanto told a press briefing.

When they were arrested they were in possession of almost 500,000 tablets, 136,000 dollars worth of rupiah and Singaporean notes, 2.3 grams of methamphetamine and 45 grams of ketamine, another party drug, Sutanto said.

The arrests came after an Indonesian man, 50-year-old Abdurrohim, was held on November 10 for allegedly possessing 9,800 ecstasy pills, Sutanto said.

"In the apartment of Chua Lik Chang we found 470,000 ecstasy pills, 24 500-gram cans of phosphorus and three 500-gram bottles of iodium crystals, suspected of being used to cut the pills," he told the briefing.

The other three men were also carrying smaller numbers of pills, he said, meaning in total 490,802 pills were seized, with a street value of some 49 billion rupiah (5.3 million dollars).

An Interpol red notice has been issued for two other men suspected of involvement in shipping two million pills to Indonesia using containers filled with corn kernels, Sutanto said. Cheong Mun Yau and Diong Chee Meng are already wanted in Malaysia, he added.

The men face up to 15 years in jail if convicted of trafficking or the death penalty if it is proven they are part of an organised ring.

Later Friday police accompanied by reporters raided the apartment of a seventh Malaysian, Steven Lau, suspected of involvement in the ring. The air-conditioner was running and a DVD was playing but the suspect had fled.

Some 2.5 billion rupiah, US$60,000 and HK$168,000 were found in a safe at the apartment, along with five grams of methamphetamines and small amounts of other drug ingredients, police said.