West Papua Police Freeze Account Of BPR BPPU Suspect Arfindo

West Papua Police Chief Inspector General Daniel TM Silitonga (ANTARA/Fransiskus Salu Weking)

MANOKWARI - West Papua Regional Police (Polda) have frozen the accounts of the suspects to trace the flow of funds in the alleged money laundering case (TPPU) of Arfindo's People's Credit Bank.

"The contracts and assets that have been obtained by investigators will soon be frozen," said West Papua Police Chief Inspector General Daniel TM Silitonga as reported by ANTARA, Monday, October 23.

He explained that investigators had named 12 people as suspects in the case for allegedly embezzling customer money amounting to Rp345.8 billion.

Ten suspects are internal parties of BPR Arfindo operating in several regencies/cities in West Papua and Southwest Papua.

"The other two suspects come from external banking," explained Daniel.

Deputy Director of Criminal Investigation at the West Papua Police, AKBP Robertus A Pandiangan, explained that there were four account freezing letters belonging to the PMI suspect as the president director and director of operations, namely JI, to be traced.

In addition to accounts, investigators also trace immovable assets such as land obtained from alleged money laundering offenses.

"So from 12 suspects, we trace them one by one," said Robertus.

He explained that the case was reported by BPR Arfindo because the results of the internal audit found a loss of Rp345.8 billion.

The police then examined 30 witnesses and named ten internal bank suspects for violating the authority of the position in accordance with Article 374 of the Criminal Code.

"The results of the examination are allegations of embezzlement committed by internal and external," he said.

The modus operandi of the suspects is to establish cooperation between external parties and internally, namely PMI and JI suspects as well as several branch heads.

This means that credit applications without collateral are immediately processed even though they are not in accordance with standard operating procedures in banks.

"All credit applications are based on the knowledge of the PM and JI suspects," said Robertus.

Other suspects then looked for customers to apply for home purchase credit at BPR Arfindo.

Customers' money is accommodated in one account which is then used for the formation of cooperatives consisting of suspects.

Investigators initially applied the article of embezzlement in office, but upon investigation it was found that there were flow and crimes that violated banking laws.

Investigators then ensnared the suspect under the primary article of TPPU, namely Article 2 paragraph 1 Letter B and I, Article 3 and Article 4 and Article 5 of Law Number 8 of 2010.

In addition, Article 49 paragraphs 1 and 2 in conjunction with Article 14 of Law Number 10 of 1998 concerning Banking and Article 374 in conjunction with Article 55 paragraph 1 to 1 and Article 56 of the Criminal Code.