2 Suspects Of Land Purchase Fraud In Lombok Charged With Money Laundering

Head of Public Relations of the NTB Police, Kombes Pol. Artanto (center) accompanied by the Deputy Director of Criminal Investigation of the NTB Police AKBP Feri Jaya Satriansyah (right)/ANTARA

MATARAM - Two suspects in the alleged fraudulent purchase of land in Kateng, Central Lombok Regency, West Nusa Tenggara, with the initials CW and LB, are also charged with money laundering (TPPU).

"Because from the original crime there was a flow of funds from the two suspects who jointly carried out, sent, spent, or transferred money from the crime of fraud, so we also applied the Money Laundering Law," said Deputy Director of General Crime Investigation of the NTB Police AKBP Feri Jaya. Satriansyah was reported by ANTARA, Thursday, June 30.

In addition to applying the suspicion of Article 378 of the Criminal Code regarding fraud in conjunction with Article 55 paragraph (1) of the 1st Criminal Code, investigators also included the two suspects Article 3 and Article 4 of Law Number 8 of 2010 concerning the Prevention and Eradication of the Crime of Money Laundering (TPPU) with threats 20 years in prison and a fine of Rp. 10 billion.

"So, the predicate criminal investigation and the ML proceeds simultaneously. Therefore, our two suspects apply such a criminal article," he said.

The criminal case began with the alleged fraud of the two suspects related to the purchase of 32 plots of land in a stretch of 16.9 hectares in Kateng, Central Lombok Regency.

The purchase took place from May 2018 with the buyer a man from Jakarta named Handy. To the victim, CW, who acts as a notary, offered the land together with LB who claimed to be the owner of the land. The price per are offered to the victim is Rp. 10 million.

With this offer, the victim was tempted to finally make a purchase agreement with CW.

"The victim at that time was willing to pay on condition that all land parcels were certified in the name of the victim," he said.

Suspect CW then stated his willingness to fulfill the request with the condition that the victim must issue a guarantee of 70 percent of the land price, around Rp. 11.8 billion.

"If until December 10, 2019 the transfer cannot be made, the security deposit is returned in full to the victim," he said.

Security deposits were also sent via banking worth Rp11.8 billion to CW's account. However, until March 2020 the victim had not received any good news from CW.

"The security deposit sent by the victim to the suspect CW has been withdrawn in cash and used to pay personal debts and has also been sent to various accounts," said Feri.

Some of the money, he continued, was sent to LB. Just like CW, LB spends the remittance for personal needs.

"So, it is not kept as collateral, but is used up for various purposes for the suspects CW and LB," he said.

From the results of the investigation, it was also revealed that of the 32 plots of land that were promised to be merged into one certificate, the suspect CW had just paid and transferred the rights to 5 plots of land with an area of 2.7 hectares.

"The rest can't be because the other 27 plots of land still belong to residents who are acknowledged to have never been sold to anyone, including the suspect CW," he said.

With such a chronology of investigations, CW and LB were later named suspects. The mode of action of the two perpetrators was declared to have fulfilled the elements of an unlawful act.

Feri said the two suspects have now been detained at the NTB Police Rutan. Their case files have been declared complete by the prosecutor.

"Because the files have been declared complete, so today we are carrying out phase two to the public prosecutor," said Feri.