The task force, established in April to recover such assets, has so far seized up to 49 plots of land covering some 5.29 million square meters in four cities across the country from an undisclosed number of BLBI debtors.

This includes 44 plots of land totaling almost 252,000 sq m inside the Lippo Karawaci housing complex in Tangerang, Banten that were seized on Friday and some plots of land in Medan, North Sumatra and in Pekanbaru, Riau. In Bogor, West Java, the government seized two plots of land totaling around 5 million sq m, and two other plots of land of different sizes.

The confiscation came only days after the government summoned 48 BLBI debtors, including businessman Hutomo "Tommy" Mandala Putra, who is the son of late former president Soeharto, and ordered them to start paying their debts. The other 47 debtors remain undisclosed.

Finance Minister Sri Mulyani said on Friday that if BLBI debtors evaded two summonses, the government would disclose their names to the public for the third summons. The government, she said, would start seizing their assets if they continued to fail to cooperate with the government.

The seizure is part of the government effort to recover assets from the BLBI debtors who have owed the government money since the 1998 Asian financial crisis, when the central bank issued the BLBI funds in the form of bonds to help banks cope with liquidity.

Read also: Govt forms BLBI asset recovery task force after KPK drops probe

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