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The Financial Transaction Reports Analysis Center (PPATK),
the country's anti-money laundering watchdog, forwarded 430 reports of
suspicious transactions to law enforcement agencies in 2006.
The PPATK handed over 425 cases to the police, while the remaining five
were forwarded to the prosecution service, chairman Yunus Husein told
The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.
"This marks big progress compared to 2003, when the agency commenced
operations. Only 24 reports were submitted to the authorities that
year," said Yunus.
Of the total number of reports, suspected corruption cases topped the
list (177), followed by fraud cases (157), and banking industry crimes
(27).
Other cases involved document forgery (19), bribery (7), terrorism (5),
tax fraud (4), currency forgery (4), illegal logging (4), gambling (3),
drugs (3), child pornography (1), theft (1), and 18 other types of
cases that were not identified.
The PPATK received a total of 6,776 reports of suspicious transactions
from 115 banks, 13 stockbroking firms, 14 foreign currency traders, 11
insurance firms, 7 financial institutions, 1 pension fund, and 1
investment manager. The number of reports of suspicious transactions
tripled last year from the 2,005 reports received in 2005.
However, Yunus said he believed that financial services providers were
still reluctant to disclose matters relating to financial transactions
due to the culture of secrecy, and the fear of losing important
customers.
There are about 4,000 financial services providers nationwide,
including 139 retail banks, 261 insurance companies, 178 stockbroking
firms, 10 mutual fund companies, 18 custodian banks, 393 pension funds,
hundreds of consumer finance firms, 2130 rural savings-and-loans banks,
and 814 foreign currency traders and money-transfer companies.
Since the establishment of the PPATK, only seven cases have been
brought to trial and ended up with convictions under the
Money-Laundering Law, while the remaining cases were tried under the
Corruption Law or other legislation.
One of the most high-profile convictions was that of Lukman Hakim, who
was sentenced to 8 years in prison for the embezzlement of pension
funds from fertilizer manufacturer Pupuk Sriwijaya.
This year, the agency, which is staffed by 110 professionals, has been
given a budget of Rp 98 billion by the government.
It plans to move to its own offices later in the year. At present, the
PPATK offices are located at Bank Indonesia headquarters.
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