IDR 300 Trillion Of Online Judicial Money Flowing Through Banks, IAW: Gap Is In Supervision

JAKARTA In the last ten years, more than 1.1 million banking accounts have been detected as connected to the flow of online gambling funds. The value is fantastic, exceeding IDR 300 trillion.

The Secretary of the Founder of Indonesian Audit Watch (IAW), Iskandar Sitorus, emphasized that the main problem is not the weakness of regulation, but the weakness of implementation in the field.

"The rules are clear, starting from the Law on the Prevention and Eradication of Money Laundering, the Criminal Code, to OJK regulations. However, in practice, there are still many bank accounts that accommodate gambling money," Iskandar told reporters on Saturday, August 16, 2025.

According to him, the pattern of account misuse involves false identities, loan accounts, and a (inactive) dormant account that is suddenly reactivated.

23 percent of gambling accounts come from Dormant accounts. There are even more than 2,000 accounts belonging to government agencies that have never been audited for more than three years," he said.

Iskandar explained, the mode of the circulation of gambling funds generally goes through three stages: first, players transfer funds to a holding account; second, money is channeled to a collector's account; and finally, funds are transferred to the dealer, transferred to legal assets, or transferred abroad.

"It's definitely a money laundering scheme, and banks must stop," he said.

For Iskandar, the responsibility of banking law is very clear.

Article 10 of the Money Laundering Law requires banks to block accounts that are indicated to be money laundering. If banks allow it, it can be categorized as intentional negligence. The question is, has this blocking performance ever been published to the public? " he said.

Not only the law, moral responsibility is also at stake.

"Bank is an institution that holds the public mandate. When the account is used for gambling, the bank fails to become a bulwark of financial security. It is tantamount to betray people's trust," he said.

Iskandar also highlighted the weak coordination between state institutions.

Integration of population data, banking, and financial intelligence has not been running in real-time. Even though PPATK, OJK, and Bank Indonesia should be able to build an integrated data center so that suspicious fund movements are immediately detected," he said.

As a strategic step, he suggested three things: first, upstream prevention with biometric verification is mandatory for all openings and account activation; second, mid-lockdown with simultaneous blocking of collector accounts based on network analysis; third, downstream enforcement with the dual application of gambling crimes and money laundering.

If risk indicators appear, for example, the Dormant account suddenly becomes active and then receives a large transfer, the bank must immediately block it. If one account receives transfers from hundreds of different sources, that is a strong sign of money laundering. Don't wait long, it must be dealt with immediately," said Iskandar.

He added that OJK should routinely publish sanctions on banks that violate the anti-money laundering principle.

"Transparency is important so that the public knows which banks are serious and which are negligent. Otherwise, the circulation of online gambling money of Rp. 300 trillion will continue to be a destructive dark business," he concluded.