Police slap travel bans on officials of closed banks

Police slap travel bans on officials of closed banks

P.C. Naommy, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Police have set up a team to investigate a fraud case involving
Bank Dagang Bali (BDB) and Bank Asiatic and issued travel bans
for some of the banks' owners and top executives following a
report filed by Bank Indonesia (BI) last Thursday.

The central bank revoked the operation permits of the two
banks on April 8 due to extreme liquidity problems at the banks,
which were allegedly triggered by fraudulent transactions
involving Rp 1.2 trillion (US$139) in loans.

National Police Chief Gen. Da'i Bachtiar had signed travel
bans for 11 officials of the two closed banks, national chief of
detectives Insp. Gen. Suyitno Landung Soedjono announced on
Tuesday.

Spokesman Brig. Gen. Soenarko D.A. said the travel bans
imposed by the police were to facilitate the investigation.

"None of the 11 bank executives have been named as suspects
yet because the team is currently studying all files and
documents submitted by BI," Soenarko said. He said the police
would summon the 11 as soon as they had finished studying the
case.

According to Soenarko, of the 11 high ranking bank executives,
six are from Asiatic, the remainder from BDB.

However, Antara, reported the immigration office at Bali's
Ngurah Rai International Airport had received instructions to
impose travel bans on 13 bank executives.

Included among the 13 names were I Gusti Made Oka (BDB's owner
and former president director); I Gusti Ngurah Oka Budiana
(former president commissioner of BDB); I Nengah Suwardana
(former head of BDB's branch in Jakarta); Tong Muk Keung
(majority share holder, Asiatic); SB Surendra (former director,
Asiatic); Won Tommy Sentana (former marketing director, Asiatic);
Ignatius Eddy Candra (former credit director, Asiatic); and Made
Budiana (former Asiatic funds and marketing director).

Bank Indonesia senior deputy governor Anwar Nasution said
earlier the problems at the banks centered on alleged lending
frauds and lending limit violations involving affiliated
companies, some of which were fictitious.

The problem came after BDB placed funds at Asiatic in the form
of interbank loans and Negotiable Certificates of Deposit (NCD).
These were later used by a BDB owner married to a daughter of an
Asiatic owner.

Anwar said the amount of the loans, worth Rp 1.2 trillion or
70 percent of the bank's assets of Rp 1.7 trillion, exceeded the
legal lending limit allowed by banking law.

The law says a bank is allowed to lend a sum worth up to 10
percent of its assets to an affiliated company.

The Denpasar-based BDB has 408,000 depositors, while the
Jakarta-based Asiatic has 2,200 depositors.

Director-General of Financial Institutions Darmin Nasution
said the government would pay the depositors of the closed banks
within two weeks.