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Police, ministry urged to expand 'umrah' fraud investigation
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Reporting fraud: Former First Travel customers report their losses from the travel agent's 'umrah' scam to the National Police's Criminal Investigation Department (Bareskrim) in Jakarta on Aug. 22. (JP/Dhoni Setiawan)
T
he Indonesian Consumers Foundation (YLKI) has called on the National Police’s Criminal Investigation Department (Bareskrim) and the Religious Affairs Ministry to work further to uncover fraud allegedly committed by several umrah travel agents.
The YLKI suspected many travel agents had carried out scams similar to the fraud case implicating First Travel, which was reported to have extorted hundreds of billions of rupiah from would-be umrah (minor haj) pilgrims.
The foundation has a list of travel agents suspected of running umrah scams, including Kafilah Rindu Ka’bah, an umrah agent with PT Assyifa Mandiri Wisata, Hannien Tour, which belongs to PT Usmaniah Hannien Tour, and Basmalah Tour of PT Wisata Tour and Travel-Bintaro.
YLKI's data shows that 3,056 people fell victim to umrah scams allegedly committed by Kafilah Rindu Ka’bah, while more than 1,800 would-be pilgrims claimed to have suffered losses from the umrah services offered by Hannien Tour.
Separately, Basmalah Tour and Travel has not yet fulfilled its promise to send 33 would-be pilgrims on umrah as of today.
“Thus, the YLKI strongly urges Bareskrim and the Religious Affairs Ministry to impose strict sanctions on these three travel agents, whose business activities are as problematic as First Travel's,” YLKI executive chairman Tulus Abadi said in a statement on Tuesday.
He asserted the police must take immediate action to hunt down the travel agents, especially since YLKI had discovered that several of their victims had actually reported the agents to Bareskrim last year.
“The Religious Affairs Ministry must also immediately set up a crisis center to allow more people to report similar umrah scams,” Tulus added. (ebf)
