Two ex-Army colonels nabbed over fake money
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)