Attorney General's Office Urged to Trace Other Assets Belonging to Eddy Tansil

Lawyer Tri Adhyaksa Viravibawa has urged the Attorney General’s Office (Kejagung) to complete the tracing of other assets belonging to Eddy Tansil, the convict in a case involving the embezzlement of US$430 million, or approximately Rp1.3 trillion, in state funds. This push came after the Kejagung’s Asset Recovery Agency (BPA) handed over a number of assets belonging to the boss of PT Golden Key Group (PT GKG) worth Rp51.6 billion. Tri claims he is carrying a mandate from his late father, Rachmat Wangsasenjaya, who was one of 33 prosecutors involved in the process of seizing and confiscating Eddy Tansil’s assets. He said the team of prosecutors at the time had conducted maximum tracing and seizure of assets, with the value even said to exceed the state’s claim. “Based on existing evidence, based on assets handed over to state banks, namely Bapindo, BDN, BBD, Bank Exim, and BNI, on 14 July 1997, the assets were sold to PT Banten Java Persada. The total was Rp1,362,244,400 or Rp1.36 trillion,” Tri said in a statement on Sunday (21/6). Tri mentioned that after the handover of these assets, in 2009-2010 there were other assets belonging to Eddy Tansil that were sold through auction. Thus, Tri said, there should no longer be any obligation for the Kejagung to pay the substitute money liability. “The asset sale was Rp1.36 trillion. Eddy Tansil’s liability was Rp900 billion, so there is a difference of Rp400 billion. At least Rp400 billion should have been handed over to the prosecutor’s office to pay the Rp500 billion substitute money. The remaining Rp100 billion just depends on how the remaining assets are sold,” he stated. Furthermore, Tri continued, there was an agreement that if assets were sold or transferred, the excess proceeds from the sale must be returned to the state. “Before the handover, the Attorney General and the Deputy Attorney General for Special Crimes had reminded them, essentially saying that if you sell or transact with a third party, the excess value of that transaction must be handed over to the Attorney General’s Office. And the Kejagung will deposit it into the state treasury as substitute money worth Rp500 billion. That is the legal procedure,” he said. However, Tri stated that to date, his party has not received information regarding the proceeds from the asset sales or the amount of funds that have been returned to the state. “If there are excess sales proceeds, they should be reported to the Attorney General’s Office. Until now, there has been no clarity. That is what I mean when I say the work of the 33 prosecutors is not yet complete,” he said. Tri further hopes the Kejagung will reopen a comprehensive tracing of Eddy Tansil’s assets so that the process of recovering state losses can be completed. According to him, this step is not only important for maximising the recovery of state assets but also to provide certainty over the work of the prosecutors who have carried out the asset execution process for decades. Previously, the Kejagung’s BPA handed over a number of assets belonging to Eddy Tansil, the boss of PT Golden Key Group (PT GKG) and a convict in the case of embezzling state funds worth US$430 million or around Rp1.3 trillion. The assets handed over included cash amounting to Rp51.6 billion, 20 plots of land, a villa, and a factory. “On this occasion, we can also report that the PPA successfully traced assets in the name of convict Eddy Tansil in the form of cash totalling Rp51,682,537,000 (Rp51.6 billion),” said Head of the BPA at the Attorney General’s Office, Kuntadi, on Monday (15/6). The surrendered assets of Eddy Tansil were obtained through intensive negotiations with the bank. Kuntadi stated the bank was willing to hand over Eddy Tansil’s assets that were previously under their control. In total, the recovered assets of Eddy Tansil amounted to Rp82,680,537,548. For context, Eddy Tansil became a corruptor who successfully embarrassed Indonesia amid the global spotlight on Corruption, Collusion, and Nepotism (KKN) under the New Order regime of President Soeharto. For more than 30 years, Eddy Tansil has “disappeared” with no legal accountability for the case that ensnared him. Citing various mass media reports at the time, in 1991, leveraging his closeness to the then Coordinating Minister for Political and Security Affairs Sudomo and Finance Minister JB Sumarlin, Eddy Tansil obtained credit from Bank Pembangunan Indonesia (Bapindo) through PT GKG. He was then said to have colluded with Tommy Soeharto. The credit was used by Eddy Tansil to build a petrochemical factory named PT Hamparan Rejeki, a subsidiary of PT GKG. However, the company was in fact merely a sham. The loan money obtained from the state went into private pockets. For his actions, a panel of judges at the Central Jakarta District Court sentenced Eddy Tansil to 20 years in prison, a fine of Rp30 million, and substitute money of Rp500 billion for the embezzlement of state funds worth US$430 million, or approximately Rp1.3 trillion at the exchange rate of the time, one year later. However, on Monday, 6 May 1996, Eddy Tansil managed to escape, immediately causing a national uproar. He is suspected of having fled to Singapore and then China.