Gayus issued the confession when questioned by police earlier this week after Devina, an AirAsia passenger, testified in a letter to Kompas daily that she saw a man resembling Gayus in the waiting room for a flight from Jakarta to Singapore on Sept. 30.

“Gayus admitted to traveling with his wife,” National Police spokesman Insp. Gen. Anton Bachrul Alam was quoted as saying Friday by news portal tempointeraktif.com.

Anton said Gayus also admitted during questioning Tuesday and Wednesday that he traveled using a passport issued to him under the name Sony Laksono.

 The police said they were probing the real motives behind Gayus’ overseas trips.

The passport, Anton added, was supposed to be issued to an applicant by the name of Margareta, not Sony.

A passenger manifest obtained by police and immigration showed Gayus flew to Macau on Sept. 24 and Singapore on Sept. 30.

Gayus’ confession has led to allegations that immigration officials and perhaps other parties were responsible for Gayus’ escape abroad because the passport he used under the name of Sony Laksono was legitimately issued by the East Jakarta Immigration Office, with only the applicant’s data being falsified.

Gayus’ illicit outings first made headlines a couple of months ago after he was photographed wearing a wig and black-rimmed spectacles at a tennis match in Bali.

He wore the same wig and glasses in the passport photograph.

Judicial Mafia Taskforce secretary Denny Indrayana said earlier he suspected Gayus traveled overseas to stop the police from confiscating his illicit fortune.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Michael Tene was quoted as saying by news portal tribunnews.com that the ministry would assist police in tracing any of Gayus’ hidden assets abroad.

He said, however, that the ministry had not received any request from the police for assistance. The police have already seized Gayus’ assets after discovering that the former tax officer, who is standing trial for bribing prosecutors, also spent hundreds of millions on bribes to be allowed to slip out of his cell 68 times in the last few months.

The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) said it was tracing the source of money in Gayus’ bank accounts by requesting help from the Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (PPATK).

KPK spokesman Johan Budi SP said the source of the Rp 28 billion (approximately US$3.1 million) in Gayus’ accounts was evidence implicating the former tax officer that had not been pursued by police so far.

The move to trace the source of the money, Johan said, was in response to calls from anticorruption activists including the Coalition for Civil Society, which urged the

KPK to take over the investigation from the seemingly inept police and judiciary.

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