OJK: Mirae Asset Pumped BEBS Shares to a Profit of IDR 14.5 Trillion

The Financial Services Authority (OJK) has stated that Mirae Asset Sekuritas earned up to IDR 14.5 trillion through manipulation of BEBS shares and through fictitious stock trades. Executive Director of Investigation for the Financial Services Sector at OJK, Inspector General Daniel Bolly Hyronimus Tifaona, said the profit came from BEBS shares. ‘The sequence of transactions is alleged to have caused BEBS shares to rise significantly in the regular market, by around 7,150 percent,’ he told reporters on Wednesday, March 4. Daniel said the sequence of transactions was executed by six operators under the control of two suspects: ASS, the Beneficial Owner of PT BEBS, and MWK, the former Director of Investment Banking at Mirae Asset. He added that the total proceeds from this illegal practice amounted to IDR 14.5 trillion. The funds, amounting to trillions, have been frozen by OJK for the time being. ‘The total value of those IDR 14.5 trillion comes from shares we have frozen, roughly around 2 billion shares priced at around IDR 7,000 per share,’ he noted. He explained that they engaged in securities trading in which they conveyed false material facts, deceiving investors into buying the shares. ‘Regarding the failure to disclose affiliated parties receiving fixed allotments in the initial public offering (IPO) and the submission of IPO use-of-funds reports that did not reflect the actual conditions,’ he said. In addition, he noted that OJK also found fictitious transactions in shares controlled through a network of affiliates and nominees. Insider trading itself is an illegal practice in stock market investments, where investors receive information about profits from the involved companies. ‘These were inter-party transactions involving seven corporate entities and 58 individual nominee entities, executed by six operators under the control of the suspects,’ he stated.