Dossier on bank fraud suspect sent to prosecutor
Dossier on bank fraud suspect sent to prosecutor
JAKARTA (JP): The City Police have handed over the dossier of one of four suspects in the recent HongkongBank fraud case to the Jakarta Provincial Prosecutor's Office.
The head of the economic crime section, Lt. Col. Aryanto Sutadi, told reporters yesterday that the dossier of Hans Wowor was sent along with a mound of evidence.
"The evidence includes the Rp 18 billion (US$ 7.8 million) cash currently deposited at the Bank Indonesia under the status of idle money," he said.
The status of the money is idle, meaning that it is kept at the bank under no one's account. Nobody and no institutions can lend or transfer the money without police permission.
Hans Wowor, a 46-year-old local businessman, is now being detained. "Our next job is to find the whereabouts of the three other suspects," Arantyo said.
They and Wowor are believed to have jointly produced a number of fake money transfer orders which caused the HongkongBank's branch office here to lose about Rp 79 billion (US$34.35 million).
The suspects, believed to be members of an international bank fraud syndicate, carried out their operation, including processing the fake orders, during the New Year holidays.
Hans was arrested in early January at his lawyer's office on Jl. Raya Pasar Minggu, Pancoran, South Jakarta after police were told about irregularities in a money transfer order to his account.
The other three suspects, now listed as most wanted criminals, are identified as Henry O. Vendijo, 55, a Philippine passport- holder, Tan Tek Hin, believed to be Singaporean, and Atik Cornelius, a local businessman.
Vendijo is named by the police as the main suspect.
Based on preliminary investigations and a report made by HongkongBank, the fake money orders asked initially for the transfer of Rp 165 billion. They were sent via telexes under the names of three prominent banks in Switzerland and Germany with orders from a corporation called Agro Impax in Italy.
The telexes, which included suitable secret codes, were sent on three different dates with different values, asking the HongkongBank branch office here to transfer cash to two local firms via private banks here; the Union Bank and the Modern Bank.
The local firms are PT Aurora, a contractor for airport facilities, and PT Atrico, an agribusiness company.
The telexes came from the Dresden Bank in Bremen, Germany, and the Union Bank of Switzerland and Swiss Bank Corporation in Switzerland.
Due to the finance problems, the Jakarta police have yet to investigate the role of the corporation but contacted the Interpol bureaus in related countries to help probe the case.
Yesterday police were still in the dark over the whereabouts of the other three suspects, who are strongly believed to have already left the country.
According to reliable detective sources, some of the suspects hold several passports from different countries. (bsr)