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prosecutor arrested by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) for allegedly engaging in corrupt activites may have asked for a Rp 2.5 billion (US$277,500) bribe, an official says.

Junior Attorney General for Internal Monitoring Marwan Effendy said he was informed that the Rp 99.9 million found in the SUV of Sistoyo, a prosecutor from the Cibinong Prosecutor’s Office, and confiscated by the KPK’s investigators as evidence, was only a “down payment”.

“Information I received said that it was Rp 2.5 billion, but I cannot tell you the source,” he told The Jakarta Post over the telephone on Tuesday.

He added that the Attorney General’s Office (AGO) would have to verify the information. He said that the amount was too big, given that the case handled by the arrested prosecutor, Sistoyo, was a fraud case. “Rp 2.5 billion does not add up if it was intended to settle a fraud case,” he argued.

On Monday a team of eight KPK investigators arrested Sistoyo allegedly in the process of accepting Rp 99.9 million (US$10,989) in cash from a defendant in front of the Cibinong District Attorney Office in West Java.

The commission said it suspected the money was paid by Edward M. Bunjamin, a businessman, with the help of Anton Bambang Hadyono to the prosecutor in return for watered-down charges against Edward.

Sistoyo handled Edward’s fraud case, which centered on a project to construct a market building in Cisarua, Bogor. It was reported that a businessman named Teguh had filed a complaint against him to the police in April for allegedly receiving four invalid checks from Edward totaling Rp 5.6 billion.

Marwan said that his office had not ruled out the involvement of other officials in the latest bribery scandal hitting the AGO, which has seen several of its prosecutors sent to jail by the KPK. “Therefore, we will soon evaluate prosecutors in the case, as well as their superior, the head of Cibinong District Attorney Office,” he said.

Johan Budi, spokesperson for the KPK, asserted that it would not rule out any possible new suspects, saying that investigators were currently looking into “whether the case stopped at Sistoyo or whether any money was funneled to other parties”. He added that KPK investigators had also questioned another prosecutor at Cibinong. Johan declined to confirm the information received by the AGO that the total money to be paid was Rp 2.5 billion.