BNI, BPN officials arrested for graft

BNI, BPN officials arrested for graft

Abdul Khalik, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Police arrested over the weekend an employee of the Kota branch
of state-owned bank BNI in West Jakarta, an official of the
National Land Agency (BPN) and a businessmen for defrauding the
bank of Rp 6 billion (US$631,570).

The city police's special crimes unit chief, Sr. Comr. Syahrul
Mamma, said on Monday that a public relations officer from BNI's
Kota branch, who has been identified only as GY, had conspired
with a businessman identified as Masduki and a BPN official
identified as JA to forge land title documents to be used as
collateral for securing loans from the bank on a number of
occasions between 2000 and 2001.

The fake title documents concerned a plot of land located on
Jl. Cakung Barat in East Jakarta.

"JA issued the documents, which purportedly showed
confirmation by the BPN that Masduki owned the land while GY
managed to convince the senior bank officers to extend the
loans," Syahrul said.

The three were also helped by a lawyer identified as RE to
produce other fake documents.

"We have put him (the lawyer) on our wanted list as he has
absconded. Hopefully, we will be able to arrest him soon,"
Syahrul said.

He explained that around Rp 1 billion in proceeds from the
scam went to GY while the remainder was shared by Masduki and JA.

The bank became suspicious when Masduki failed to pay any
installments on the loans.

Syahrul said that the bank had tried to trace Masduki but had
been unable to do so.

When the bank then attempted to realize the collateral, it
found that Masduki was not the real owner.

"They realized that the documents pledged as collateral were
fakes. They reported the matter to us in October last year. After
several months of investigation, we arrested the three suspects,"
Syahrul said.

He said the suspects were now being detained at city police
headquarters.

All of them had been charged under Articles 2 and 3 of Law No.
31/1999 on corruption, Law No. 20/2001 on corruption, Article 49
of Law No. 10/1998 on the banking industry, and Articles 55 and
56 of Criminal Code. They face maximum cumulative sentences of 20
years in prison each if convicted.

BNI has been hit by a series of graft scandals over the last
several years.

Prosecutors in Medan, North Sumatra, arrested three former BNI
directors last week for their alleged involvement in a lending
scam worth up to Rp 500 billion.

Five BNI officials -- former BNI Pondok Indah branch Mochamad
Supedi, branch marketing officers Mukhlis Budianto and Moejibur
Rahman, branch appraisal officer Alfonsius Weheb, and BNI's
Jakarta region deputy head Noortjahyo Zunoor -- were arrested for
their alleged involvement in the Rp 46.5 billion (US$5.17
million) BNI Pondok Indah branch loan scandal.

All of them are now in the custody of Jakarta prosecutors, and
are due to go on trial soon.

The most spectacular graft case was the embezzlement of Rp 1.7
trillion of BNI money from the Kebayoran Baru branch in South
Jakarta between 2000 and 2002, which involved a number of
businesspeople and officials.

Most of the defendants in that case were convicted and jailed
by the courts.