Bank owner evades charges
Bank owner evades charges
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Police have halted investigation into Tong Muk Keung, the
majority shareholder of the now defunct Asiatic Bank, in an
alleged bank fraud and changed his status to witness.
National Police director I of Economic and Specific Crimes
Division, Brig. Gen. Samuel Ismoko said on Thursday there was not
enough evidence to implicate Tong in the case.
Ismoko said, despite the change in his status, Tong would have
to report to the National Police Headquarters twice a week.
Tong was declared a suspect on April 8 and banned from
traveling abroad thereafter. At that time, he was suspected of
involvement in alleged lending frauds amounting to Rp 1.2
trillion (US$139 million) and involving the recently closed down
Asiatic Bank and Bank Dagang Bali (BDB).
Bank Indonesia (BI) spokesman Rusli Simanjuntak said that
although majority shareholders were not operational officials,
there was strong suspicion that they had influence over the
directors' decision-making, especially in credit approval for
affiliated companies -- which later turned out to be fictitious.
According to BI, the alleged lending frauds occurred when BDB
placed funds in Asiatic in the form of interbank loans and
Negotiable Certificates of Deposit (NCD). These funds were later
used as loan collateral by the son of BDB's majority stakeholder,
I Gusti Made Oka, who is married to Tong's daughter.
The amount of loans provided exceeded the legal lending limit
allowed by banking law of only 10 percent of its lending
exposure. The loans accounted for 70 percent of the bank's total
assets of Rp 1.7 trillion.
With acquittal of Tong, there are eight former shareholders,
directors and managers of BDB and Bank Asia named suspects in the
bank fraud.
Five of them -- FB Surendro (former president director) and
Made Budiana (former fund marketing director) from Bank Asiatic,
and I Gusti Ngurah Oka Budiana (former chief commissioner), I Gde
Wibawa (former treasury official) and I Nengah Suwardhana (former
Jakarta branch head) of BDB -- are being detained for the purpose
of the investigation.