Police probe bank accounts of officers
Eva C. Komandjaja, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta
The National Police have begun investigations into reports submitted by the Financial Transactions and Report Analysis Center (PPATK) on suspicious transactions from bank accounts owned by 15 police officers.
National Police chief Gen. Sutanto told the press on Friday that he already ordered the internal affairs division to follow up on the reports.
"We are working together with PPATK in the investigation, but we cannot disclose the details because the reports remain secret to the public for investigation purposes," he said.
Last Tuesday, the PPATK submitted the transaction reports to Sutanto as part of its regular duty to report any suspicious transactions in the bank accounts of senior police officers.
Sutanto said that in carrying out the investigation, the police's internal affairs division would exchange information with other anticorruption bodies, such as the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) and the interdepartmental anticorruption team chaired by Hendarman Supandji, who is also deputy attorney general for special crimes.
The KPK had previously signed a memorandum of understanding with the National Police before Sutanto replaced Gen. Da'i Bachtiar as police chief to improve coordination in handling criminal cases, including corruption within the police.
When asked about the possibility that certain internal affairs officers were the owners of some of the investigated accounts, Sutanto gave an unsatisfactory response.
Separately, PPATK head Yunus Hussein told The Jakarta Post that the bank accounts, where the suspicious transactions were found, were not only owned by high-ranking police officers.
"It's not only generals who own these accounts, but also lower level officers such as sergeants," he said.
However, Yunus refused to specify the amounts of the suspicious transactions, saying he was not authorized to do so.
He also denied media reports quoting him as saying that one of the accounts held up to Rp 800 billion (US$81.4 million).
Yunus said the bank transactions inquiry was part of his center's regular system and that nobody had requested the PPATK to check the officers' accounts.
"Nobody asked us to check those accounts. It was our own system that requires us to do so regularly. It happened that we found suspicious transactions in police officers' accounts this time," he explained.
Yunus also said the transactions had actually been detected last year, but the PPATK decided to submit them to the police after Sutanto took office in the hope that his clean reputation would help the PPATK resolve graft cases in the country.
When submitting the reports to Sutanto, he said, the center did not recommend that the police chief freeze the bank accounts. "We only give the reports to the police. It is up to the police to do whatever they want with them."