More officials are believed to have been involved in a conspiracy to fake land certificates in East Jakarta and Bekasi, West Java, police said on Thursday.

Jakarta Police’s general crime unit deputy director Adj. Sr. Comr. Ade Ary said the crime allegedly involved 19 state officials at the district, village and hamlet levels.

Of the 19 officials, eight are linked to the East Jakarta case while the 11 others are linked to the Bekasi case.

In one of the cases, the suspects had used fake documents to claim ownership of a plot of land on Jl. DI Panjaitan, where the East Jakarta Vehicle Document Registration Center (Samsat) office stands, to sue the Jakarta administration in order to get Rp 340 billion (US$22.8 million) in compensation.

"The deed of sale and purchase and the land certificate are all fake. We want to find out for certain who issued them," Ade said as quoted wartakota.tribunnews.com.

"We suspect there are more people involved," Ade added, noting that the officers had found some fake ID cards belonging to one suspect named Sudarto.

The seven other East Jakarta suspects, Ade said, helped Sudarto with the crime because he promised them a 25 percent share of the compensation they demanded from the city.

In fact, the 29,040-square-meter plot, worth Rp 900 billion, has been listed as a city asset since April 1985.

On Wednesday the police announced that 11 officials in Bekasi had been accused of conspiracy in a Rp 23 billion transaction involving a 7,700-sq.m. plot. (vla)