The Criminal Investigation Agency of the Indonesian National Police (Bareskrim) recently announced the cracking of a money laundering case involving an amount of 530 billion Indonesian Rupiah (approximately 32 million US dollars). The police pointed out that this huge sum of money is suspected to be related to illegal online gambling activities, transferred through numerous shell companies and thousands of bank accounts.
According to the Jakarta Post, the police have identified two main suspects, known as OHW and H, both of whom are senior management at the tech company PT A2Z Solusindo Teknologi and its subsidiary PT TGC. Investigations revealed that the group used 4,656 bank accounts opened at 22 financial institutions to carry out systematic money laundering through bank transfers and cash transactions.
Wahyu Widada, the Director of the Criminal Investigation Agency, stated at a press conference that the suspects used frequent transfers between accounts to deliberately obscure the flow of funds. A large amount of the money eventually went to illegal online gambling platforms.
The police have frozen assets including 276 billion Rupiah in government bonds and four luxury cars, and have sealed 197 bank accounts. According to the investigation, the involved parties have been conducting money laundering operations since at least 2019 and have many years of background in the gambling industry.
Wahyu added that all recovered assets will be stored in a supervisory account designated by the national criminal police, as part of further legal proceedings.
According to current Indonesian law, gambling activities are illegal in the country. Article 303 of the Penal Code stipulates that participation in gambling can be punished with up to 10 years imprisonment and a fine of 25 million Indonesian Rupiah; if related content is disseminated through electronic means, it can be punished with up to 6 years imprisonment and a fine of 1 billion Indonesian Rupiah under the Electronic Information and Transactions Law.
The exposure of this case highlights Indonesia's strict stance against online gambling and related financial crimes, and also exposes the potential risks of some tech companies and financial systems in the money laundering chain.
