T

he Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) announced on Friday it had for the first time charged a company with money laundering — a move aimed at boosting its efforts to recover stolen state assets.

The company, PT Putra Ramadhan, is owned by the former regent of Kebumen in Central Java, Mohamad Yahya Fuad, who has been named a corruption suspect in a case pertaining to the budgetary allocation for the regency’s education agency and youth and sports agency.

The company allegedly used the names of five different companies to take part in procurement projects held by the Kebumen administration between 2016 and 2017. The total value of the projects reached Rp 51 billion (US$3.6 million).

Mohamad allegedly used the money, received by PT Putra Ramadhan from his own administration’s projects, for his personal expenses, according to KPK investigators.

“This is the first money laundering investigation carried out by the KPK with a corporation as the perpetrator,” KPK deputy chairman Laode Muhammad Syarif said as quoted by state-run news agency Antara.

“The KPK hopes this legal process could be part of the effort to strengthen corruption eradication in the future, especially to maximize the effort of asset recovery,” said Laode.

Yahya resigned from his position as regent in January. Along with his deputy regent Yazid Mahfudz, Yahya was among 34 regional leaders sent by the Central Java administration to take part in an anticorruption program held by the KPK after their inauguration as leaders in February 2016.

Friday’s announcement comes as the antigraft body intensifies its crackdown on alleged corrupt practices involving business entities.

The KPK has now found itself in a stronger legal position to charge companies after the Supreme Court issued a regulation in 2017 to back the agency’s position, KPK spokesperson Febri Diansyah said in April.

The apex court’s regulation provides a legal basis for law enforcement agencies, including the KPK, to prosecute graft-tainted companies and details procedures on how corporate crime is handled.

Under the new regulation, companies may face a fine if they are found guilty of benefitting from corruption or allowing it to take place. Their assets may be confiscated if they fail to pay the fine.

In a news conference on Friday, Laode said: “We are reminding business players to be serious about preventing themselves from committing crimes, especially corruption and money laundering.”

“A company’s failure to implement preventive measures can be a deciding factor when assessing its liability.”

The KPK made its first move to charge a corporation with corruption in July last year, when it named PT Duta Graha Indah (DGI), which is linked to Jakarta Deputy Governor Sandiaga Uno, a suspect in a corruption case related to the construction of a hospital in a state university in Bali.

In April, the agency named state-owned construction firm PT Nindya Karya and private company PT Tuah Sejati suspects in the botched construction of a loading dock in a government harbor project in Aceh.

Nindya Karya was the first state-owned enterprise to be named a corruption suspect in Indonesia. The KPK estimates that Rp 313 billion in state losses were incurred in the case.