Nazaruddin’s fugitive wife has been tracked

JAKARTA. The police have tracked down the location of Neneng Sri Wahyuni, the fugitive and wife of graft defendant Muhammad Nazaruddin, a top detective said Thursday.

The National Police (Polri) chief of detectives, Comr. Gen. Sutarman, said his team had tracked Neneng’s by collaborating with several members of Interpol and communicating with Thai police.

“We cannot mention the fugitive's position ... Yes, we have been cooperating with the Thai Police, but surely they are not the only members of Interpol,” Sutarman said on the sidelines of a meeting between the Corruption Eradication Commission, Polri and the Attorney General’s Office at the AGO headquarters.

Meanwhile, Immigration Directorate General spokesman Maryoto Sumardi confirmed that the authorities suspect Neneng’s whereabouts were in Thailand.

Neneng was named suspect in a rigged 2008 procurement bid for solar power equipment at the Manpower and Transmigration Ministry. She was an executive of Permai Group, a company that allegedly belongs to Nazaruddin.

The company was also implicated in another high-profile graft case – the athletes’ village project in South Sumatra, in which Nazaruddin is now being tried as a defendant.

Nazaruddin was also a fugitive in 2011 when he fled from justice to several countries in what he described as a "business trip", before the Colombian police captured him in Cartagena, Columbia, in August 2011. (The Jakarta Post)