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AKARTA: The National Police have detained two of three suspects allegedly connected with corruption in the sale of state-owned condensates in 2009.

Director for special economic crimes Brig. Gen. Bambang Waskito said that investigators had finally moved to detain former head of the now-defunct Upstream Oil and Gas Executive Agency (BPMigas), Raden Priyono, and former BPMigas financial deputy Djoko Harsono, after they received the results of an investigative audit conducted by the Supreme Audit Agency (BPK), which stated that the alleged graft caused state losses of up to US$2.7 billion.

'€œLast night [Thursday] we decided to detain two of the suspects,'€ Bambang said.

Investigators, however, failed to detain the third suspect who is currently overseas.

The third suspect, former owner of PT Trans Pacific Petrochemical Indotama (TPPI) Honggo Wendratno, was in Singapore having undergone a heart bypass operation. Investigators may decide to detain him later if his condition improves.

Between 2009 and 2010, TPPI collaborated with BPMigas to market condensates in Indonesia. Although the firm never paid profits from the sales to the government, BPMigas continued to extend its contract with the firm.

Furthermore, TPPI began selling the condensates before its contract was finalized in April 2010, after which BPMigas continued to supply condensates to the firm.

Bambang said that given the scale of the state losses the police might start investigating possible money-laundering charges.

'€œWe will continue our investigation and there is a possibility that there will be other suspects named in the case as the state losses are so huge,'€ he said.