Police name 10 other suspects in BNI scam
Damar Harsanto and Zakki Hakim The Jakarta Post Jakarta
Police named on Wednesday 10 other businessmen as suspects in a huge export loan scam worth Rp 1.7 trillion (US$201.2 million) in publicly listed Bank BNI. The suspects were named in addition to two bank officials who were arrested in mid-October.
"We are continuing our investigation into the case. We have questioned nine witnesses and two prime suspects. We have also identified several suspect 'candidates' from those who have profited or will profit (from the scam)," said National Police deputy chief of detectives Insp. Gen. Suyitno Landung.
Suyitno said the 10 new suspects comprised two top businessmen who owned holding company Gramarindo Group and the directors of its eight subsidiaries that received the export loans.
Suyitno, however, declined to mention the names of the businessmen implicated in the case.
Since the middle of this month, police have detained Koesadiyono, head of the BNI Kebayoran Baru branch in South Jakarta, and Edy Santoso, head of the foreign customer service division of BNI Kebayoran Baru.
The BNI scam was centered on the disbursement of credit for the export of commodities like marble, sand and oil residue to the Congo and Kenya.
The export credits were granted to the eight Gramarindo subsidiaries with letters of credit from banks in Kenya, Switzerland and the Cook Islands as collateral. Without conducting any formal assessments or checks, BNI Kebayoran Baru disbursed the export credits from December 2002 to July 2003.
The police alleged that the bills of loading attached to the letters of credit were fraudulent, as the goods were never exported -- but the export loans were channeled.
Police said investigators would refer to several laws and regulations that may have been violated by the scam, including Criminal Code Article 263 on document forgery, Law No. 10/1998 on banking, Law No. 20/2001 on anticorruption and Law No. 15/2002 on money laundering, in order to net more suspects.
Dealers said the scam had worsened sentiment in the stock market, causing the Jakarta stock composite index to fall by 0.4 percent, or 2.190 points, to 626.862.
The Jakarta Stock Exchange plans to seek clarification from BNI management over the graft allegations, and a meeting has apparently been set for Thursday.
Meanwhile, a law expert from the University of Indonesia (UI), Harkristuti Harkrisnowo, said the scam was a white-collar crime, as it could only be committed by people with access, power and knowledge.
"This case is really worrying, because it would affect our credibility as a nation in the international world of export and import activities," she told reporters, and hoped that the police would be transparent in solving the case.