Anti-Corruption Activist Questions KPK's Sale of Two OPPO Phones for Rp59.7 Million When Reserve Price Was Only Rp73,000
The Coordinator of Indonesia’s Anti-Corruption Society (MAKI), Boyamin Saiman, has stated that the KPK must investigate who purchased two mobile phones with a reserve price of Rp73,000 that sold at auction for approximately Rp59.71 million.
According to Boyamin, the KPK must conduct this investigation because there may be hidden secrets within the two phones that motivated the buyer to pay such an inflated price.
“The KPK must investigate who the buyer is, there may be secrets that need to be uncovered,” Boyamin said when contacted in Jakarta on Tuesday (17 March).
He noted that KPK auctions sometimes become anomalies. For instance, in a batik cloth auction where the reserve price was Rp500,000, the item sold for Rp5 million.
Boyamin believes the batik cloth was purchased by the auction winner for sentimental reasons. However, mobile phones are different, as their market prices decrease over time, and it is unlikely that phones would be purchased as mementos.
“Phones become cheaper the longer you have them. You wouldn’t buy them as mementos either. So the buyer of this phone must be suspected of wanting to retrieve data from it, since it wouldn’t be for sentimental value,” he stated.
Alternatively, Boyamin suggested, the phones could be gold-plated or contain gold, which would justify the buyer’s willingness to pay such a premium for the two OPPO branded devices.
“Or perhaps the phones are gold-plated. It must be that. If they weren’t gold-plated, they would have no value, so it would be impossible for them to sell for tens of millions,” he said.
He suspected the phones contained data that the buyer wanted to retrieve. If the phones were purchased by someone else, the data would be exposed.
Therefore, Boyamin recommended that the KPK re-examine all data stored on the phones and investigate further. There may be potential evidence of other corruption cases stored on the devices.
“The KPK must re-examine all the data on the phones. This should be suspected to be related to corruption and must be investigated further regarding potential or suspected corruption contained in the phone data,” he said.
“I am confident that the buyer wanted to recover that data so it wouldn’t be leaked elsewhere. If someone else bought it, it would definitely be leaked, which is why they dared to pay such a high price,” Boyamin added.
Previously, the KPK acknowledged that the auction of two OPPO branded mobile phones with a reserve price of Rp73,000 that sold for approximately Rp59.72 million was indeed an anomaly.
“Yes, there is indeed an anomaly regarding the high value of the auction winner’s bid,” said Mungki Hadipraktikto, the KPK’s Director of Asset Tracing, Evidence Management, and Execution, to journalists in Jakarta on Monday (16 March).
Based on the latest data he obtained, the auction winner for the two phones with a reserve price of Rp73,000 had only paid the deposit and had not yet settled the full amount. The payment deadline is 25 March 2026.
As a result, he stated that the KPK is still waiting for the auction winner to settle the payment for the two phones.
“We still hope the auction winner is committed to paying the auction costs, because if not paid, the auction winner will be considered in breach of contract. Consequently, the deposit already paid will be forfeited and transferred to the state treasury, and we will re-auction the item at the next auction opportunity,” he said.