Marcella Santoso and Ariyanto Bakri: Grand Corruption Case 'Mega Corruption' That Has Caused the CPI to Plummet

JAKARTA, KOMPAS.com - The panel of judges said that the advocate and defendant Marcella Santoso and Ariyanto Bakri had committed large-scale corruption or grand corruption because it benefited foreign parties. “That the party benefiting from the bribery process is a foreign company, namely Wilmar Group in Singapore. Therefore, this case has the character of grand corruption,” said Associate Judge Andi Saputra, as he read the legal considerations of the verdict in the Jakarta Corruption Court on Tuesday, 3 March 2026.

In this case, the Wilmar Group, based in Singapore, is believed to have earned trillions of rupiah in profit while coordinating wrongdoing from abroad. “The characteristics of a company that pursues interests in the crime in Indonesia but is controlled or operated from abroad and can be considered an attempt to evade the jurisdiction of law, even though it earns trillions of rupiah on Indonesian soil,” added Judge Andi. “This can also be regarded as a form of new-style colonialism, where in the past the VOC came directly to the Nusantara, now it is enough to hire lawyers or a law firm under instruction from its country,” Judge Andi said. Moreover, the total bribe money disbursed reached 4 million United States dollars (US$4 million). The wrongdoing by Marcella and Ariyanto is considered to have a negative impact on the image of the Indonesian judiciary in the international arena. “The impact caused by the defendants is international in scale, because they represented clients of Wilmar Group headquartered in Singapore, thus the impact stains the reputation of the Indonesian judiciary in the world,” the judge said. Furthermore, the bribery contributed to a sharp decline in Indonesia’s Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) in 2025. Meanwhile, Singapore’s score was the highest in Southeast Asia. Yet the bribe payer came from the Lion City. “Even though there is an anomaly, Singapore occupies the highest CPI score in ASEAN. Meanwhile, the parties involved bribed Indonesian court officials whose headquarters are in Singapore,” Judge Andi added again. In this case, Marcella was sentenced to 14 years in prison with a Rp 600 million fine, subsidiary to 150 days.