The task force, established in April to recover such assets, has so far seized up to 49 plots of land covering some 5.29 million square meters in four cities across the country from an undisclosed number of BLBI debtors.

This includes 44 plots of land totaling almost 252,000 sq m inside the Lippo Karawaci housing complex in Tangerang, Banten that were seized on Friday and some plots of land in Medan, North Sumatra and in Pekanbaru, Riau. In Bogor, West Java, the government seized two plots of land totaling around 5 million sq m, and two other plots of land of different sizes.

The confiscation came only days after the government summoned 48 BLBI debtors, including businessman Hutomo "Tommy" Mandala Putra, who is the son of late former president Soeharto, and ordered them to start paying their debts. The other 47 debtors remain undisclosed.

Finance Minister Sri Mulyani said on Friday that if BLBI debtors evaded two summonses, the government would disclose their names to the public for the third summons. The government, she said, would start seizing their assets if they continued to fail to cooperate with the government.

The seizure is part of the government effort to recover assets from the BLBI debtors who have owed the government money since the 1998 Asian financial crisis, when the central bank issued the BLBI funds in the form of bonds to help banks cope with liquidity.

Read also: Govt forms BLBI asset recovery task force after KPK drops probe

Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister Mahfud MD said the land seizures were part of the debt settlement agreement with BLBI debtors.

The BLBI task force is mandated to recover state assets worth around Rp 110 trillion (US$7.6 billion) through civil litigation, including 1,672 plots of land covering around 15 million square meters, by the end of 2023, according to Mahfud.

It was established after the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) dropped its criminal investigation into BLBI because the Supreme Court acquitted a key suspect -- former Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA) chairman Syafruddin Arsyad Temenggung. The court found that he committed no criminal act in issuing a debt discharge letter, which released a borrower from their obligation to repay government loans taken out under the BLBI scheme, but a civil or administrative one.

Read also: 'Not a crime': Supreme Court acquits key suspect in BLBI graft case

The KPK has sent numerous corruption perpetrators to prison in connection with the BLBI funds, but recovering stolen state assets, particularly money that has been converted into other types of assets -- such as land -- has been difficult.

Mahfud said that while the asset recovery pursued by the task force was indeed through a civil litigation process, he did not dismiss the possibility of criminal investigation.

“It is not impossible if during the process we find criminal acts, such as  false statements, illegal asset takeovers, document forgery, or other things [that are related to obligors],” he said, adding that representatives from the Attorney General’s Office and the police were part of the task force.