Adrian 'got $4.6m from Gramarindo'

Adrian 'got $4.6m from Gramarindo'

Abdul Khalik, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Prosecutors will finalize next week the indictment on Adrian
Waworuntu, a key suspect in a Rp 1.7 trillion (US$185 million)
fraud involving state bank BNI, based on evidence that he had
received $4.6 million of the money from Gramarindo Group.

Assistant Chief Prosecutor for Special Crimes at the Jakarta
Prosecutor's Office Marwan Effendy said on Sunday that Adrian was
the consultant for the Gramarindo, a group that had used
fictitious letters of credit to embezzle BNI money. Adrian is
also accused of giving a personal guarantee for the credit.

"Adrian cannot deny that he had received $4.6 million from
Gramarindo as we obtained a document saying he signed a credit
guarantee document submitted by Gramarindo to get the money. All
the evidence will be used to indict Adrian," Marwan told The
Jakarta Post.

Based on the evidence, Adrian will be charged under the anti-
money laundering law as he had received money from criminal
activities, and under the law on corruption because he had
allegedly helped Gramarindo embezzle state money.

Adrian was taken into custody by the police on Friday after
one month in hiding.

He, together with another key suspect Maria Pauline Lumowa,
the owner of Gramarindo, and several directors of the Petindo
Group, which worked together in issuing the fictitious letters of
credit, are accused of defrauding the country's second largest
bank in 2003. They used letters of credit from correspondent
banks in Congo and Kenya to withdraw money from BNI's Kebayoran
Baru branch.

The crime caused the state bank to suffer Rp 1.7 trillion in
losses, only Rp 1 billion of which has been recovered.

Police have named 17 suspects from BNI, Gramarindo and
Petindo. Nine of them have been convicted by the South Jakarta
Court to between 8 to 15 years in prison, while former BNI
executive Edi Santoso received a life sentence.

However, Maria remains at large. She fled the country before
the police went public about the scam in December 2003.

Marwan said the prosecutors had a strong case against Adrian
following their success in bringing other suspects to justice.

"We will be very careful in drafting the indictment so as not
to let Adrian walk free. We are sure we will be able to send him
to jail as we have done with nine other suspects," he said.

Adrian said in an exclusive interview with RCTI, while on the
run in Singapore that he was innocent and claimed that he was a
victim of political intervention by President Megawati
Soekarnoputri's regime.

He did not elaborate on his statement about political
intervention, but the BNI case did have some political undertones
after Edi Santoso, the former BNI Kebayoran branch's foreign
transaction manager, distributed a letter to the press on Nov.
18, 2003 saying he had met with Gen. (ret) Wiranto, at the time
one of the Golkar Party's presidential aspirants, twice in the
course of disbursing the funds.

Wiranto subsequently denied the content of the letter, and
said he did not recognize Edi nor any other suspects in the
scandal. Later Edi withdrew his statement after Wiranto filed a
lawsuit against him.