Attorney General's Office: CPO Export Code Manipulation Using POME Ruse Only Occurred in Indonesia

The Attorney General’s Office (Kejagung) has revealed that the manipulation of Crude Palm Oil (CPO) export codes to Palm Oil Mill Effluent (POME) was recorded only in Indonesia.

Director of Investigation at the Deputy Attorney General for Special Crimes, Syarief Sulaeman Nahdi, said that in the destination countries, authorities had recorded receiving CPO from Indonesia as normal.

He stated that based on investigators’ examination of several POME export-receiving countries, it was confirmed that the export code manipulation was carried out solely by the perpetrators to deceive officials in Indonesia.

“For the destination country data that we have partially obtained, it was recorded as CPO. That is roughly how the document manipulation in Indonesia worked,” he said when contacted via text message on Friday (20 February).

The Attorney General’s Office previously raided a total of 16 residences and offices in connection with the alleged corruption case involving the manipulation of CPO export codes to POME during the 2022–2024 period.

Head of the Attorney General’s Legal Information Centre, Anang Supriatna, said the raids were conducted by investigators in the Medan and Pekanbaru areas between 12 and 14 February.

Anang said investigators seized a number of items of evidence including documents, mobile phones, computers, and six vehicles.

The POME corruption case originated when the government imposed restrictions and controls on CPO exports to safeguard cooking oil supplies and price stability in the domestic market.

However, investigators discovered that export commodity classifications for CPO were being manipulated using the export codes for POME or Palm Acid Oil (PAO), which are residues from palm oil processing.

Evidence of bribery — both the giving and receiving of payments — was found, intended to smooth the administrative and supervisory processes for exports.

Based on preliminary calculations, state financial losses resulting from the CPO export code manipulation scheme amounted to between Rp10.6 trillion and Rp14.3 trillion.

A total of 11 individuals have now been named as suspects. Three of them are state officials, namely FJR, a former Director of Customs Technical Affairs at the Directorate General of Customs and Excise (DJBC); LHB, Head of the Non-Food Plantation Industry Sub-directorate at the Ministry of Industry; and MZ, Head of the Counselling and Information Services Section at the Pekanbaru Customs Office.