Customer asks for status of blocked bank account

JAKARTA (JP): A customer of the Standard Chartered Bank here has asked the authorities to immediately explain the status of her account of Rp 1 billion which was blocked by the bank four months ago.

"We need clarification. The sooner, the better," businesswoman Yee Mei Mei, a Hong Kong national operating a investment service company here, told The Jakarta Post here yesterday.

"Whatever the status of our account is, the central bank, or the minister of finance, or the police, should let us know," said Mei Mei.

"That way we'll know what steps to take," she said after hosting a reception for the visiting Vanuatu Prime Minister Carlot Korman, who was here on a one-day unofficial visit.

The money was transferred by Dragon Bank's office headquarters in Vanuatu, an island country in the Pacific Ocean, she said.

Detectives of the economic crime section at the National Police Headquarters had questioned David Hawkins, chief executive of the Standard's Indonesian office.

National Police Spokesman Brig. Gen. Nurfaizi as well as executives of the bank could not be reached yesterday for comment.

Through her lawyer, Mei Mei also filed another lawsuit against three executives of the Standard Chartered to the Jakarta Metropolitan Police, accusing them of having violated existing bank rules by providing secret information of his customer's identities and account to a third party.

City Police spokesman confirmed that Standard spokeswoman Rina Djamal, along with several witnesses, has been questioned in regard with the lawsuit.

"But the investigation is still going on," Iman told the Post. director of PT Perdana Investco, a holding company.

According to lawyer Rusdi, his client had been prevented from closing her bank account on at least three separate occasions in January, without legitimate reasons.

"The bank only informed my client that it was Bank Indonesia which had advised Standard Chartered Bank to temporarily block Mei Mei's account," Rusdi said. "But they don't have any written statement from the central bank."

A latest release from the Standard Chartered revealed that "it was advised to freeze the funds until it could be ascertained whether there was a link" with the fraud at the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited in Indonesia earlier this year.

"Such precautions accord with international best practice and are not intended to cause any embarrassment to the account holder," the release said, adding that "Hongkong Bank has provided an indemnity to Standard Chartered in relation to the freezing of the account. (bsr)