BRIN Reveals Indonesia's Bad Laws In Overcoming Crypto Crimes

JAKARTA The National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN) said that Indonesia is still weak in handling criminal cases involving cryptocurrencies. This can be seen in the latest BRIN studies.

The study noted a surge in the use of digital assets that had not been balanced by the readiness of the national legal system. BRIN also found a number of critical problems that needed to be addressed, ranging from the readiness of human resources (HR) to unclear regulation of crypto asset laws.

BRIN researcher, Aghia Khumaesi, emphasized the development of digital transactions that are growing rapidly, including Indonesia. This development can be seen from Indonesia, which has managed to rank 3rd in the world crypto market.

"The surge in crypto utilization is not directly proportional to the readiness of the national legal system in dealing with crimes involving digital assets," Aghia said, quoted on Friday, November 28.

The most common obstacle is the lack of coordination between non-integrated law enforcement officials. For example, the authorities have different guidelines when handling crypto cases so that the law enforcement process is ineffective.

"The police have reached a certain stage, but when the case arrived at the prosecutor's office, the process had stalled, especially at the stage of tracing digital asset wallets," explained Aghia.

Aghia also highlighted the competence gap between criminals and law enforcement officials. Officials are considered to have difficulty in pursuing the increasingly sophisticated mode of operation of perpetrators, especially in tracking crypto assets.

Another obstacle is the status of crypto law which is not in line with the practice of digital crime in the field. Currently, crypto is still categorized as a commodity, even though many crimes use crypto as a transaction medium.

Seeing these various problems, BRIN emphasized the importance of improving the quality of law enforcement human resources and drafting technical guidelines between institutions. Training on digital-based asset tracking methods for forensics is also considered very much needed.

For now, only prosecutors have specific guidelines in handling crypto cases, including wallet tracking protocols. Therefore, similar guidelines are expected to be adopted nationally in all judicial institutions.