BNI officials detained for graft
Evi Mariani, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta
The Jakarta Police detained on Friday five executives of Bank Negara Indonesia (BNI) Pondok Indah branch in South Jakarta for allegedly providing loans worth Rp 46.46 billion (US$5.16 million) to fictitious companies.
"The five suspects are charged under Law No. 20/2001 on anticorruption and Law No. 10/1998 on banking," police spokesman Sr. Comr. Tjiptono said.
The anticorruption law carries a minimum sentence of four years imprisonment and a maximum of 20 years and a minimum fine of Rp 200 million and a maximum of Rp 1 billion.
Mochamad Supedi, the former head of BNI's Pondok Indah branch and Noortjahjo Zunoor, BNI's deputy head of the Jakarta area, were named suspects for authorizing bad credit.
Police said Mukhlis Budianto and Moejibur Rahman, both marketing officers of BNI Pondok Indah, allegedly neglected to verify the validity of the credit proposals.
Alfonsius Weheb, an appraisal officer, was detained for failing to check the validity of the collateral offered by creditors identified as Hendra and Budianto.
The police have also named Hendra and Budianto, who went missing before BNI reported the case to the police in July 2003, as suspects in the case.
The police accused the five of collaborating with the other two, who submitted a proposal for retail credit between 2002 and 2003.
The police revealed that Hendra and Budianto proposed loans to the bank using documents of 11 fictitious companies including cell phone retailers, auto retailers, electronics retailers and a property company.
For collateral, the suspects used 10 certificates of building and land ownership that belonged to people who owed money to Hendra and Budianto.
BNI later found out that the loans had been channeled to fictitious companies after approving 10 loans.
Police have questioned 50 people since July 2003 including 10 people who owed Hendra money and 22 notaries who issued the certificates of the fictitious companies. They also questioned 18 BNI officials.
The police have also asked help from an auditor of the Development Finance Comptroller (BPKP), an expert witness of Bank Indonesia and a legal expert from the University of Indonesia to make the case.