Hundreds Of Rejang Lebong Residents Fooled By Bodong Investments, Losing IDR 850 Million

JAKARTA - Investigators from the Rejang Lebong Police, Bengkulu Province, are currently developing an investigation into a fraudulent investment case that has harmed hundreds of residents of the area, up to Rp850 million.

Head of Criminal Investigation Unit of the Rejang Lebong Police, AKP Rahmat Hadi Fitrianto, accompanied by the Head of the Specific Crime Unit (Tipidter) Ipda Ibnu Sina Alfarobi, said that the two suspects related to fraudulent investments that were secured by his party on Friday, August 6 were YN (19), a resident of Curup District; and VA (20), residents of Central Curup District.

"Currently, the case is still under development to find out whether their network is still there and other possible victims," said Rahmat Hadi at the Rejang Lebong Police Headquarters, quoted by Antara, Wednesday, August 11.

He explained that the development of the case carried out by his party was carried out by carrying out further examination of the suspect, a number of victim witnesses and the banking sector in order to trace the flow of the funds anywhere.

The money collected by the two suspects, he said, reached Rp. 861 million with 135 victims. The money was kept in four bank accounts, namely BCA, BRI, BNI and Mandiri.

"After we traced the balances of these four bank accounts, they were empty. These customer funds, apart from paying for investments that had matured, were also used to buy electronic goods, such as cellphones, travel and jewelry," he said. In the examination conducted by investigators on YN who is unemployed and VA (student of one of the PTN in Curup City), they only rotate the funds deposited by their customers to other customers and only take advantage of administrative costs.

"The suspect's method is to collect customer money and then play it back from customer to customer. These customers are promised a profit of 35 percent of the value of the money deposited, for example from IDR 1 million to IDR 1,350,000 in 10 days," he said.

Meanwhile, the suspect, YN, admitted that he had made investments since January 2021, initially inviting potential victims to invest in what they called arisan with a promised profit of up to 35 percent of the amount deposited.

"If we deposit Rp. 1 million, we return Rp. 1.5 million in 10 days, then we deduct an administrative fee of Rp. 150 thousand, but after that we don't get admin money anymore. So if something is due, we use other people's investment money," said YN .

The two suspects themselves were charged by the Tipidter Polres Rejang Lebong investigator for violating Article 46 paragraph (1) in conjunction with Articles 16 and 17 of Law No.10/1998, regarding amendments to Law No.7/1992, concerning Banking, with a penalty of 15 years in prison.