Kortas Tipikor Names Three Suspects in Coal Procurement Financing Case

The Corruption Eradication Corps (Kortas Tipikor) of the Indonesian National Police has named three suspects in a corruption case related to an invoice financing facility provided by state-owned asset management firm PT Perusahaan Pengelola Aset (PT PPA) to PT Bintang Abadi Sempurna (BAS) for a coal procurement project during the 2019-2020 period. Kabagops Kortas Tipidkor Polri, Commissioner Yusuf Ahmad Afandi, identified the suspects as IT, an Investment Manager at PT PPA, and FSN, the Head of the Operational Division at PT BAS. The third suspect, FH, a Director of PT Bintang Abadi Sempurna, is currently serving a prison sentence for a separate case.

According to the investigation, PT PPA provided a financing facility to PT BAS through an invoice financing scheme worth Rp50 billion. However, the total funds eventually disbursed reached Rp67.31 billion across eight different processes. Commissioner Yusuf stated that investigators found irregularities in the due diligence process, noting that risk analysis was not carried out properly. A recommendation to conduct direct verification with PT PLN Batubara was ignored, despite this being a mandatory procedure according to PT PPA’s internal standard operating procedures. Furthermore, the authenticity of invoices and supporting documents was not verified, yet they were declared compliant and used as the basis for fund disbursement.

Oversight of the cash collateral mechanism was also neglected, allowing disbursements to proceed even though guarantee requirements were not met. In the final disbursement stage, it is alleged that bank statements were manipulated to make the guarantee account balance appear sufficient. These allegedly falsified documents were then used to justify further fund disbursements. Commissioner Yusuf emphasised that this was not merely an administrative error but a series of conscious, structured, and interconnected actions that caused state funds to be disbursed without a legal basis. The Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) calculated the state financial loss from these actions at Rp38,848,461,055.81. As part of the effort to recover state losses, investigators have seized assets including land and buildings belonging to the suspects in Medan, Bogor, Bekasi, Samarinda, and Sidoarjo, with an estimated value of around Rp14.4 billion.