Rp 33 billion scandal rocks Danamon in Medan
Apriadi Gunawan, The Jakarta Post, Medan, North Sumatra
Another billion-rupiah bank scandal has again rocked the country, raising questions about the security of financial transactions and the banking system in the country.
After the Bank BNI scandal last year, the management of private bank PT Bank Danamon disclosed on Friday a scandal that recently hit its Medan branch to the tune of Rp 33 billion (US$4,125,000).
"Six people are being questioned by the police," said Christine Damanik, the spokeswoman of the bank, in a press conference in Medan. The press conference was also attended by local police investigators.
The people in question were identified by the their initials as US, the head teller at the bank's Medan branch, and five outsiders, AN, HT, RID, WHA and MHA.
Sr. Comr. Satria Hari Prasetya, the chief of North Sumatra Police detectives, said that the police had questioned them and they had been named suspects.
The suspects admitted that they had used part of the money for gambling and others for multilevel marketing trading, said Satria. US, in particular, admitted that he used part of the money to pay back debts to certain parties, after he had lost money to them through gambling.
US told police investigators that the money had been embezzled in stages beginning seven months ago.
Satria said that the scandal was uncovered after US walked out of the bank on Tuesday, bringing a bag which other employees in the bank office in Medan suspected contained a large amount of cash. The employees smelled something fishy by his manner and reported it to their boss in the office.
Their superior examined the transaction flow in the bank later on Tuesday night and found Rp 3 billion difference between the total amount of transactions that day recorded in the computer, with the total cash counted by the bank officials that night. They reported the crime to the police, and the police quickly apprehended US and other suspects.
The police were able recover some Rp 14 billion of money from the suspects, some Rp 3 billion of the total Rp 14 billion was in the form of cash, while the remaining Rp 11 billion was in the form of bank accounts in Bank Danamon, Bank BCA and Bank Kesawan.
These accounts have been frozen. Satria said that the suspects could be charged with committing banking fraud that carries a sentence of between five and 15 years in jail.
Silvanus, another official at Bank Danamon, alleged that other employees in the bank might be involved in the scandal, because the cash count was done not only by the head teller but also by others, including, his staff.
The bank scandal in Medan was the third after two other bank scandals that rocked Bank BNI. Last year, the state-owned Bank BNI lost Rp 1.7 trillion (US$200 million) due to fraud that involved its employees. The scandal involved the BNI branch in Kebayoran Baru, South Jakarta, which channeled export loans without undertaking proper appraisals to the Gramarindo Group and the Petindo Group in order to finance the export of commodities to the Congo and Kenya. The exporting companies supported their loan requests with bogus letters of credit allegedly issued by banks in Kenya, Switzerland and the Cook Islands as collateral. The exports never materialized, hence BNI lost the money.
Another smaller scandal hit the bank early this year, involved a BNI branch in Magelang, Central Java, which cost the bank Rp 24 billion (US$2.8 million).