Two ex-Army colonels nabbed over fake money

JAKARTA (JP): Jatinegara Police officers apprehended two retired Army officers and three civilians for distributing counterfeit money following a three-day investigation, an officer said on Saturday.

East Jakarta Police chief Col. Hidayat Fabanyo said the two former Army officers were Col. (ret) Andi Mattundruan and Lt. Col. (ret) Deddy Djunaedi, while the civilian suspects were identified as Patrianti, Ibnu Lestiyanto and Yoesky Yoesoef.

"The five are now being detained at the East Jakarta Police jail," Fabanyo said.

"The police also confiscated Rp 3.1 million (US$364) of counterfeit money from Patrianti and Rp 1,500,000 of real money from Ibnu," he added, pointing out that the fake money was in Rp 50,000 bills.

Fabanyo said the police were still investigating the case, attempting to track down the mastermind and confiscate the printing equipment.

He said the police investigation began following a report filed by a grocery stall owner, identified only as Taryono, who runs a kiosk on Jl. D.I. Panjaitan in Jatinegara district, East Jakarta, that he received counterfeit money from a customer.

"Taryono suspected Patrianti, who came to his kiosk several times to buy small things but used two Rp 50,000 bills to pay for the two things she bought," he said.

From Patrianti, the police learned that there were four other people behind the distribution of the fake money. The four were all picked up from their houses between June 27 and June 29.

Fabanyo said that during preliminary questioning, Andi only wanted to tell the police that he bought Rp 5 million in counterfeit money for Rp 1.7 million from a sailor, identified only as R, and who is still at large.

The Rp 5 million in fake money was sold to Deddy for Rp 2.5 million, who then sold it to Yoeski and Ibnu. Patrianti then bought Rp 4 million of the counterfeit money for Rp 3 million.

Fabanyo added that previously Andi received another Rp 10 million in fake money from the sailor, but it had been distributed to different people.

"That means that there are still other people involved in distributing the counterfeit money from Andi." he said.

Earlier, on May 22, Jakarta Police detectives apprehended retired Army colonel Soemarjono at his house in the Bintaro Jaya housing complex in South Jakarta for his alleged role in the production and circulation of counterfeit money. They confiscated Rp 4.7 billion in Rp 50,000 denominations in uncut sheets of bogus money.

Soemarjono was the commander of the Army Strategic Reserves Command (Kostrad) internal affairs division from 1996 to 1998 and manager of Indonesia's Thomas Cup badminton team this year. (06)