Village Treasurer In East Kutai Becomes A Corruption Suspect Of IDR 2.1 Billion For Fraudulent Investment

KUTAI - The East Kutai District Attorney (Kejari), East Kalimantan named a woman with the initials J as a suspect in a corruption case in village funds. The suspect, who is known to have served as treasurer of Bumi Etam Village, is suspected of misusing a village budget worth IDR 2.1 billion to invest in fraudulent investment applications.

The determination of the suspect was carried out after J underwent examination for more than three hours on Thursday (6/11/2025) afternoon. From the results of the investigation, it is known that village funds sourced from the 2024 APBDes are used by suspects to invest in two illegal investment platforms, namely Blockfy and Celsius.

Head of General Crimes Section of the East Kutai Kejari Michael Tambunan explained that the suspect was initially tempted after receiving a chain message through the WhatsApp application which offered a big profit.

Sister J initially received a WA broadcast containing a link to the money doubling application. After trying, he had time to get a profit at the beginning so he was more daring to invest more funds," Michael told Beritasatu.com at the East Kutai Kejari Office.

To increase investment capital, J is even suspected of falsifying the signature of the village head in order to withdraw the remaining funds for more budget financing (Silpa) worth more than Rp. 1 billion. Not only that, a number of other budget posts were also misappropriated until the total state losses were estimated at Rp. 2.1 billion.

"Initially it was still profitable, but over time it lost money. From the results of the investigation, the total village funds used for the fraudulent application reached around Rp. 2.1 billion," said Michael.

Currently, suspect J has been detained at the Detention Center of East Kutai Regency. He was charged with the Corruption Crime Act and threatened with a prison sentence of up to 20 years. The East Kutai Kejari also confirmed that it would investigate the possibility of other parties involved in the case.