T

he Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (PPATK)said the National Police are now investigating a low-ranking official who had Rp 1.3 trillion (US$113.8 million) in his bank account.

PPATK chairman Muhammad Yusuf on Thursday did not disclose the identity of the state aofficial for the sake of the ongoing investigation.

'€œWe have reported our findings to the National Police criminal investigation division. Now, it is their duty to find out if there has been a criminal violation,'€ Yusuf said at the PPATK headquarters in Jakarta on Thursday.

According to information collected by The Jakarta Post, the suspicious transactions were allegedly tied to subsidized fuel (BBM) smuggling and people smuggling practices in the border areas outside of Java.

Yusuf said that suspicious cash deposits had taken place almost every day over the last five years with the highest daily transaction being Rp 10 billion.

He added that the total amount excluded incoming transfers from other bank accounts.

'€œIf the cash deposits were related to a business venture, they would not occur every day. And it'€™s unusual for someone to receive large profits from a business in the form of cash,'€ Yusuf said, adding that the public official had run a money changing business, with a yearly income of around Rp 5 billion.

Yusuf suspected that the public official was being used by someone else to cover up dirty money from extortion, people smuggling or bribery, which mostly took place in the form of cash, adding that the cash was mostly in the form of S$1,000 (US$798.79) bills.

He added that the PPATK had traced the money to a number of state officials, who Yusuf said were neither high profile nor high ranking.

'€œThe recipients of transfers from the public official'€™s account are not high ranking officials, thus, it is important to reveal the big fish behind the case,'€ Yusuf went on.

The case is reminiscent of infamous low-ranking police officer Labora Sitorus, who had suspicious transactions totaling Rp 1.5 trillion in his account.

Sitorus, who was a police officer in oil-rich Papua, made headlines in June last year after the PPATK discovered the suspicious transactions, which had occurred over the past five years.

Papua'€™s Sorong District Court in February sentenced him to two years in prison for illegal logging and fuel stockpiling, but, surprisingly, dismissed the money laundering charges against him.

Data from Indonesia Police Watch (IPW) showed that from January 2012 to March 2013, Sitorus had wired money to 33 National Police individuals, including post chiefs; heads of sub-precinct and precinct police stations; officials from the police'€™s Internal Affairs Division (Propam); directors at the Papua Police; the Papua Police chief and his staff and officials at the National Police headquarters.

In 15 months, the money Sitorus disbursed, in the form of bank transfers and cash, amounted to Rp 10.9 billion.

The National Police headquarters denied that Sitorus had been used by his superiors to launder money and insisted that he had acted alone.

National Police Spokesperson Brig. Gen. Boy Rafli Amar said Sitorus was the only member of the police implicated in the case.