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PPATK freezes dormant bank accounts to ‘protect public' from online gambling
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A user looks at advertisements for online gambling websites through his smartphone in Jakarta on June 19, 2024. (Antara/Aprillio Akbar)
T
he Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (PPATK) says it has frozen dormant bank accounts to “protect the public” from predatory schemes like online gambling and fraud, following reports that some bank customers found their accounts blocked without notice.
Over the weekend, a growing number of customers of various banks, both private banks and digital lenders, lamented on social media that their accounts had been frozen. They said the banks did not provide clear reasons behind the move but cited an instruction from the PPATK.
The PPATK said on Sunday that it had done so because dormant accounts were prone to be utilized for illegal activities, such as for online gambling deposits.
“Besides online gambling, other people’s bank accounts have also been massively used to store the results of fraudulent activities, drug trafficking and other criminal acts,” the PPATK said in a press statement.
The agency cited as an example the freezing of some 28,000 bank accounts used for illicit gambling throughout last year. At the time, a government task force in charge of combating online gambling also found indications that some bank accounts were used by bookies or syndicates organizing gambling operations. The task force suspected that the groups had lured people, mostly living in villages, into opening new bank accounts and selling them to bookies for use in online betting transactions.
But the PPATK on Sunday said the latest freezing of bank accounts was “temporary” and that bank customers could apply for reactivation with their respective banks.
“The customers will not lose their rights over the money they hold in their bank accounts at all,” the agency said.
