Attorney General's Office Investigates Alleged Export-Import Value Manipulation

The Attorney General’s Office (Kejagung) has revealed it is investigating allegations of trade misinvoicing in export-import documentation by several companies. The findings were previously reported by Finance Minister Purbaya Yudhi Sadewa to President Prabowo Subianto during a cabinet meeting on Thursday, May 21.

Syarief Sulaeman Nahdi, Director of Special Criminal Investigations at Kejagung, stated that the investigation into alleged trade manipulation and transfer pricing has been ongoing for about a month.

“We are currently investigating the trade manipulation and transfer pricing case, which started around a month ago. The data from the Finance Ministry supplements our existing records,” Syarief said at Kejagung’s Special Criminal Investigations building in Jakarta on Monday.

He also mentioned that several parties have been questioned as witnesses, but Syarief Sulaeman Nahdi did not provide further details on the case or the identities of the companies under investigation.

“Further details will be provided later. For now, that’s all,” he said.

Previously, Finance Minister Purbaya Yudhi Sadewa revealed that his ministry had checked three shipments from 10 randomly selected crude palm oil (CPO) companies. According to Purbaya, the checks revealed suspected manipulation of export prices to the United States.

“They are clearly manipulating export prices to the US,” he said.

Despite not disclosing company names, Purbaya provided examples of suspected invoice manipulation. In one case, a company reported an export value of $2.6 million, while the US import records showed $4.2 million.

“That’s 57% lower. There’s even more extreme cases: one company reported $1.43 million in exports here, but $4 million in imports abroad—a 200% price discrepancy. We are checking ship by ship,” he explained.