Customs Clarification On Alleged Money Laundering Of Rp. 189 Trillion Gold Batangan

Illustration of Customs Officers (Photo: Doc. Ministry of Finance)

Deputy Minister of Finance (Wamenkeu) Suahasil Nazara gave a statement regarding the alleged money laundering transaction of Rp. 189 trillion at the Directorate General of Customs and Excise related to the export of gold bullion.

In his statement, Suahasil said that this problem began on January 21, 2016 when the Customs and Excise (BC) ranks in Soekarno-Hatta found a company that wanted to export 218 kg of gold with a foreign exchange value of 6.8 million US dollars.

"In the document, it is called the export of jewelry but it turns out to be an ingot (gold bullion). It was stopped by BC because after being investigated there was a potential for customs crime," he said when told the media crew on Friday, March 31.

Suahasil added, after that research, investigation, and court level were carried out. In 2018 a trial was conducted on the case in a district court with the results of BC losing.

The Customs and Excise then filed an appeal. At this level BC won," he said.

In 2019, a review process (PK) of the cassation decision was carried out at the request of the reported party (company).

"At the PK level, Customs and Excise is lost again with a decision not proven to be a customs crime. It should be noted that money laundering (TPPU) is always related to the original crime. If the crime is not proven by the court, the money laundering offense cannot," he explained.

Dari periode 2016-2019 ini, sambung Suahasil, masuk data yang ada nama Pak Heru (Dirjen Bea Cukai periode 2015-2021) yang disebut.

Furthermore, Sri Mulyani's representative revealed that the same transaction pattern was repeated in 2020. It was stated that at that time the Ministry of Finance was building further communication with the Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Center (PPATK).

"This was followed up with several meetings. Until then in August 2020 in a meeting it was said that the mode was the same, in the 2016-2019 case we have been defeated by the court regarding customs crimes. With that logic, in August 2020 it was agreed that if the customs action was not affected, the tax pursuit was," said Suahasil.

Meanwhile, the official statement of the Directorate General of Taxes (DGT) on this context is as follows.

"Regarding the PPATK examination, the Directorate General of Taxes has examined Preliminary Evidence of three taxpayers (PT B, PT C, PT D), examined three taxpayers (PT B, PT C, PT E) and supervised seven individual taxpayers. Until now, the resulting tax revenue value related to information on the results of the PPATK examination is Rp. 16.8 billion and prevents tax restitution of Rp. 1.6 billion," said the DGT as conveyed by the Deputy Minister of Finance Suahasil Nazara.

Previously, the spotlight on hot Gold was raised by the Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal and Security Affairs (Menko Polhukam) Mahfud MD during a working meeting with Commission III of the DPR this middle of this week.

Mahfud conveyed allegations of money laundering by a number of companies in the form of gold transactions worth Rp. 189 trillion.

"The report is that gold bullion imports but in excise documents are said to be raw gold, examined by PPATK, the reason is that raw gold is printed in Surabaya, but it is checked that there are no factories, concerning billions from 2017 by PPATK. In 2020 it was sent again to Mrs. Sri Mulyani but not until after two years," he said as reported by VOI previously.