An investigation team of the Directorate of Investigation at the Office of Junior Attorney General for Special Crimes has named one more suspect in an alleged corruption case in the tin commodity trading system in PT Timah’s Mining Business License (IUP) area from 2015 to 2022.
“Until now, the investigation team has questioned 130 witnesses. Based on the results of the examination and the garnered evidence, the team has raised the status of one witness to a suspect, namely RL as General Manager of PT Timah. So, the total number of suspects has increased to 11, including one suspect for committing obstruction of justice, identified as TT),” Spokesman of the Attorney General’s Office, Ketut Sumedana, said on Monday, February 19, 2024.
The role of suspect RL in this case is to sign a cooperation contract made by suspect MRPT and suspect EE to accommodate the collection of illegal tin ore from PT Timah’s Mining Business License. This was done by creating puppet companies such as CV SJP, CV BPR, and CV SMS which were all under control of suspect RL.
Earlier, environmental expert and academic at the Bogor Agricultural University Prof. Bambang Hero Saharjo said the value of ecological losses or environmental damage incurred in this case is Rp 271 trillion (US$17.3 billion) . For the purpose of investigation, the suspect RL was detained at Pondok Bambu Penitentiary for the next 20 days starting from February 19, 2024 to March 9, 2024.
Suspect RL is charged with Article 2 Paragraph (1), Article 3 and Article 18 of Law No. 31/1999 as amended and supplemented by Law No. 20/2001 and Law No. 31/1999 concerning amendments to Law No. 31/1999 on Corruption Eradication and Article 55 Paragraph of the Criminal Code.
As previously reported, PT Timah illegally cooperated with several private companies, which resulted in the unlawful purchase of tin mining commodities.
“The tin mining products that were illegally bought back by PT Timah has caused state losses in this case,” said Ketut.
