Police Estimate Losses Of Binomo Victims To Reach IDR 3.8 Billion

JAKARTA - Investigators from the Directorate of Special Economic Crimes (Dittipideksus) of the National Police have estimated that the loss value of victims of fraud under the guise of the Binomo online gambling application or binary option (binary option) reached IDR 3.8 billion.

The nominal loss is the accumulation of losses submitted by eight victims who underwent examination at the National Police Headquarters, Thursday, February 10.

"The total loss combined to date is around Rp. 3.8 billion," said the Director of the Special Criminal Investigation Unit of the National Police Brigadier General Whisnu Hermawan.

Eight victims examined by investigators each with the initials MN who suffered a loss of Rp540 million; LN loss of IDR 51 million; RSS loss of Rp. 60 million; FNS losses of IDR 500 million; FA lost Rp1.1 billion; EK loss of Rp1.3 billion; AA loss of IDR 3 million; and RHH a loss of Rp. 300 million.

In this case, there was an alleged criminal act of online gambling or the spread of false news through electronic media or fraud / fraudulent acts and or money laundering by the alleged reported party with the initials IK and friends. The crime occurred around April 2020 from the application or website Binomo which has promised a profit of 80 percent to 85 percent of the value or open trade funds determined by each trader or victim.

"Until now, there are eight victims who have come and are still conducting in-depth interviews," said Whisnu.

There are also various modes used by the perpetrators, one of which is by looking at the promotions spread by reported IK and friends through social media, namely YouTube, Instagram, and Telegram channels.

The Reported Party through its social media account offers benefits through the Binomo Trading application (Binary option) that Binomo is legal and official in Indonesia.

"The Reported Party taught trading strategies in the application and continued to show off his profit results, then the victim joined from the profitable ones until finally they always lost," said Whisnu.

In this case, investigators are investigating the alleged violation of Article 45 paragraph (2) in conjunction with Article 27 paragraph (2) and/or Article 45 A paragraph (1) in conjunction with Article 28 paragraph (1) of Law Number 19 of 2016 concerning Amendments to Laws Number 11 of 2008 concerning Information and Electronic Transactions (ITE), Article 3, Article 5 and Article 10 of Law Number 8 of 2010 concerning Prevention and Eradication of the Crime of Money Laundering (TPPU), Article 378 of the Criminal Code in conjunction with Article 55 of the Criminal Code.

As is known, Binomo is one of the trading applications blocked by the Commodity Futures Trading Supervisory Agency (CoFTRA) of the Ministry of Trade (Kemendag). A total of 1.22 Commodity Futures Trading (PBK) sites and 92 binary options domains were prosecuted throughout 2021.