Maria Lumowa's sister arrested for BNI scandal
Maria Lumowa's sister arrested for BNI scandal
Abdul Khalik, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Another relative of Maria Paulien Lumowa, a prime suspect in the
Rp 1.7 trillion (US$200 million) Bank Negara Indonesia (BNI)
scam, has been arrested for alleged involvement.
National Police chief of detectives Com. Gen. Erwin Mappaseng
said on Friday that Maria's sister Jean Lumowa was arrested on
Thursday evening based on statements made by other suspects.
"We declared Jean Lumowa, a younger sister of Maria Pauline
Lumowa, as a suspect on Thursday based on information we have
obtained from the other suspects," Mappaseng said.
"We have her here at headquarters awaiting her detention
order," he said.
The arrest is likely to inflict psychological pressure on
Maria Paulien, who is still at large, to surrender to police and
face the music. Another prime suspect, Adrian Waworuntu, was
detained earlier this week. A total of 12 people have so far been
declared suspects in the scam and are now in detention cells.
Jean, a director of PT Sagared, is the second member of the
Lumowa family to be arrested in relation to the BNI case
following the arrest of Adrian Pandelaki Lumowa, a director of PT
Magnetique Usaha Esa Indonesia.
PT Sagared is the holding company for all of the subsidiaries
of the better known Gramarindo group. The subsidiaries that have
so far been implicated in the scandal are PT Bassomasindo, PT
Bhinekatama Pacific, PT Gramarindo Mega Indonesia, PT Magnetique
Usaha Esa Indonesia, PT Triranu Caraka Pasifik, PT Pan Kifros, PT
Ferry Masterindo and PT Metrantara.
Mappaseng said that the police would encourage Jean to request
Maria to surrender. Maria has been at large for about a month
since she was declared a suspect in October.
"We still hope that she will come to us but if she refuses we
will use every possible means to arrest her," said Erwin.
The police had earlier managed to arrest nine suspects in the
scandal, including three BNI officers, and six from the Gamarindo
group's subsidiaries.
The scandal began when BNI's Kebayoran Baru branch in South
Jakarta granted export credits to the Gramarindo group's
subsidiaries using letters of credit (L/C) issued by banks in
Kenya, Switzerland and the Cook Islands as collateral. They
claimed to be exporting commodities to the Republic of Congo and
Kenya. Without conducting any formal assessments or checks, the
branch disbursed the export credits between December 2002 and
July 2003.
The police suspect that the bills attached to the L/Cs were
fictitious as the goods were never imported -- the export loans
were, however, disbursed.
"We have concluded that we have all the evidence necessary to
continue the investigation against all of the suspects," said
Erwin.
He also said that the police investigators would use a number
of laws and regulations that appeared to have been violated in
the scam, including article 263 of the Criminal Code on document
forgery, Law No. 10/1998 on banking, Law No. 20/2001 on
corruption and Law No. 15/2002 on money laundering.
Rumors have also been rife that three presidential candidates
from the Golkar Party received money from individuals implicated
in the scandal.
Golkar Party chairman Akbar Tanjung, Coordinating Minister for
People's Welfare Jusuf Kalla and Gen. (ret) Wiranto, all Golkar
Party presidential candidates, denied the allegations.
However, the political dimensions of the case reignited when a
letter written by Edi Santoso, the former foreign customer
relations manager in the BNI branch at the center of the scam,
was leaked to the press on Tuesday.
The letter stated that Edi Santoso, together with suspected
business persons, met Wiranto to discuss Wiranto's plan to run
for the presidency in 2004.
Wiranto quickly denied this the following day, saying that he
did not know Edi and had no relations with any of the suspects.