Police place suspects in BDB, Asiatic bank scam on wanted list
Police place suspects in BDB, Asiatic bank scam on wanted list
P.C. Naommy, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
All nine shareholders, commissioners and directors of recently
closed Bank Dagang Bali and Bank Asiatic have reportedly fled
their respective residences, prompting the police to put them on
a wanted list.
National Police chief of detectives, Comr. Gen. Suyitno
Landung Soedjono, said on Friday the police were attempting to
determine the whereabouts of the bank officials, who are suspects
in the two banks' failure.
Put on the police's wanted list are five officials from Bank
Asiatic -- Tong Muk Keung (the majority shareholder), FB Surendro
(former president director), Won Tommy Sentana (former marketing
director), Ignatius Eddy Candra (former credit director) and Made
Budiana (former fund marketing director).
From Bank Dagang Bali are I Gusti Ngurah Oka Budiana (former
president commissioner), I Gusti Made Oka (the majority
shareholder), Gede Wibawa (former treasury official) and I Nengah
Suwardhana (former head of the Jakarta branch).
Suyitno said police were unsure if the suspects were still in
Indonesia or had fled the country.
"We imposed travel bans on the nine bank officials on April 8,
but when we checked on them at their addresses, we found that
they were not living there anymore," said Suyitno.
"If it is true that they have already fled the country then we
will coordinate with Interpol," he said.
Bank Indonesia closed down Bank Dagang Bali (BDB) and Bank
Asiatic on April 8 and slapped travel banks on the shareholders,
commissioners and directors.
According to Suyitno, police began tracing the whereabouts of
the nine officials last Thursday.
Police earlier said they had sufficient evidence to indict the
nine officials for fraudulent banking transactions.
The case against the nine bank officials reportedly became
stronger after police studied several documents and files
submitted by Bank Indonesia on April 8 and after a coordination
meeting last Wednesday with the central bank, which was also
attended by a team from the Attorney General's Office and
officers from the Bali Police.
According to Bank Indonesia, the case centers on a number of
allegedly fraudulent loans and legal lending limit infractions by
the two banks, which were owned by two families connected by
marriage.
The BDB placed funds in Asiatic in the form of interbank loans
and Negotiable Certificates of Deposit. The funds were later used
as collateral for loans to the son of BDB's majority stakeholder,
I Gusti Made Oka, who is married to the daughter of Bank
Asiatic's former owner, Tong Muk Keung.
The amount of the loans provided to I Gusti Made Oka's son
reportedly exceeded the legal lending limit allowed by banking
law. The loans accounted for 70 percent of Asiatic's total assets
of Rp 1.7 trillion.
Existing banking regulations requires that a bank lend a
maximum of only 10 percent of its lending exposure to an
affiliated company.
The Denpasar-based BDB currently has 408,000 depositors, while
the Jakarta-based Asiatic has 2,200 depositors. The government
must provide some Rp 2.39 trillion (US$281 million) to cover the
money of the two banks' depositors as part of its blanket
guarantee program.