About 178 foreign "barons" of illegal saw mills on the islands of Papua, Sumatra and Borneo had been detained since the imposition of a presidential decree on illegal logging last year, Kaban said.

"From those figures, the largest number of barons arrested came from Malaysia," Kaban was quoted as saying by the Republika newspaper.

A spokesman for the ministry, Masyud, said a total of 28 Malaysians were currently waiting for court dates in Papua province.

Three other Malaysians had also been jailed for nine years each earlier this month in West Kalimantan province on Borneo while 10 others were still being processed for trial, Masyud told AFP.

About 74 forestry ministry officials had also been detained for backing illegal logging operations, which cost Indonesia over three billion dollars in lost revenue annually, Kaban said.

Indonesian officials warned in April that so-called timber barons had been targeting remote Papua province due to dwindling tree cover on Java and some parts of Sumatra islands.

Environmental investigators say that timber smuggling from Papua to China is the world's largest logging racket.

The London-based Environmental Investigation Agency said 300,000 cubic meters (more than 10 million cubic feet) of merbau hardwood is being smuggled out of Papua every month to feed China's timber processing industry.

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

Indonesia is losing forest areas equivalent to half the size of Switzerland every year, according to the agency.

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