Developer implicated in Rp 102 billion bank fraud

JAKARTA. Iyan Permana, a property developer, was taken into police custody on Thursday for his alleged role in a Rp 102 billion (US$9 million) fraud case at Bank Syariah Mandiri (BSM).

National Police spokesperson Insp. Gen. Ronny F. Sompie said Iyan was accused of conspiring with three BSM officials to steal from the bank by lending Rp 102 billion to a number of fictitious recipients.

The BSM officials, who have been named suspects, are M. Agus, the head of the BSM’s main branch in Bogor; Haerul Hermawan, head of the bank’s affiliate branch in Bogor and John Lopulisa, the affiliate branch’s accounts officer.

“Last night, we detained four suspects, including a businessman who was involved with BSM’s affiliate branch management. Their modus operandi is fabricating the identity of clients, such as ID cards and other administrative documents,” Ronny said at the National Police headquarters in South Jakarta.

The police suspected that the four embezzled Rp 59 billion from Rp 102 billion in loans distributed to 197 fictitious clients, mostly billed as housing loans customers.

BSM’s legal consultant, Sulistio, suspected that Iyan had utilized his property project in Bogor to create a list of fictitious clients.

“He developed a residential area for end users, who later requested housing loans [from BSM]. He initially was a witness in the case, but later police investigators found indications that he took part in the crime,” Sulistio said at a press conference held at BSM headquarters in Central Jakarta on Thursday.

Sulistio also claimed that Iyan was the owner of a number of luxury cars confiscated by the police on Wednesday.

Ronny confirmed that the police had seized 10 vehicles that had allegedly been purchased with the embezzled funds. Among the vehicles was a Hummer H3, a Mercedes-Benz SLK300 and a Honda Goldwing F6B motorcycle.

“We are still investigating other vehicles to see if those were purchased with the illicit funds,” Ronny said.

BSM’s corporate secretary, Taufik Marchus, said the bank had found indications of the misconduct in 2012 and filed a police report in September this year.

“In 2012, we only had rudimentary evidence. We subsequently followed up on the case by dispatching a special audit team to dig up more facts. They analyzed more than 100 [suspected fictitious] clients one by one. After gaining preliminary evidence, we filed a police report,” he said at the press conference.

Following the internal audit, BSM senior vice president of human resources Ahmad Fauzi said the bank had discharged the officials from their positions, suspended them before eventually terminating them from the company.

“We terminated the employment of JL [John] on Nov. 1, 2012, HH [Haerul] on Dec. 1, 2012 and MA [Agus] on Oct. 4 this year,” Ahmad said.

Taufik also gave assurances that the fraud case would not impact the bank’s non-performing loans [NPL] ratio or the bank’s performance in general.

“The NPL will not be hampered. We have an early warning system to monitor the distribution of loans. Our system was able to detect the Bogor case […] We could not have expected to have a perfect system [from the beginning]. This [the case] will help us to improve the system,” he said. (Yuliasri Perdani)