Raids on Homes of 7 Suspects in Petral Corruption Case, AG's Office Seizes Evidence Documents
The Attorney General’s Office (AGO) has conducted searches on the homes of seven suspects in the corruption case involving the procurement of crude oil by Pertamina Energy Trading Limited (Petral) for the period 2013-2018.
Director of Investigation for the Deputy Attorney General for Special Crimes, Syarief Sulaeman Nahdi, stated that the searches were carried out on Thursday (9/4) last week, following the determination of suspect status.
“The searches were conducted at the respective residences of the suspects,” he told reporters on Tuesday (14/4).
During the searches, he said, investigators also seized several items of evidence related to the corruption case. The evidence will be analysed before being submitted to the court.
“Documents and electronic evidence were seized from the homes of the suspects,” he concluded.
Previously, the AGO named seven individuals as suspects in the corruption case of crude oil procurement by Pertamina Energy Trading Limited (Petral) for the period 2013-2018.
Two of them are the oil boss Mohammad Riza Chalid and IRW, the right-hand man of Riza Chalid, who is also a director at Gold Manor, VeritaOil, and Global Energy Resources companies.
The case began when Petral officials leaked internal company confidential information regarding crude oil and gasoline needs.
That information was then exploited by Riza Chalid to influence the procurement process or tender for crude oil, refinery products, and transportation. As a result, tender conditioning and HPS value information occurred.
That conditioning then caused prices to become expensive because the procurement became uncompetitive. Through that collusion, an MoU was produced between Petral and Riza Chalid’s companies to supply refinery oil products from 2012 to 2014.
The actions of the suspects are deemed to have prolonged the fuel supply chain process, impacting the increase in prices for Ron 88 or premium products and Ron 92 or Pertamax.