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| Southeast Asia |
| Antaboga-Century scam tallies up Rp 2.8 trillion in losses |
| 2009-02-27 |
| Financial losses are tallied now at Rp 2.8 trillion (US$235 million) for Robert Tantular's alleged scams as a shareholder of PT Antaboga Delta Securitas and Bank Century, a National Police representative said Thursday. "We are looking at two cases similar in nature. The Antaboga case has incurred losses of Rp 1.4 trillion and the Century Bank case Rp 1.4 trillion," National Police chief of detectives Comr. Gen. Susno Duaji said, as quoted by Antara news. He added the investigation has so far revealed various illegal practices Tantular repeatedly conducted to Bank Century's detriment, including a plan in 2008 to cash in an obligatory note worth US$65 million issued sometime in 2005-2006, though "the money never came through in the end". Between January and Novermber 2008, Tantular is said to have embezzled $18 million worth of foreign currency. In October 2008, he allegedly had a false letter of credit worth Rp 97 billion given to PT SCI. "He would use his position as a bank owner to blackmail the branch managers. This was his modus operandi," Duaji said, adding several other instances of abnormal activities have been reported. As for the amount of money generated from the Antaboga scam, Duaji said Rp 276.7 billion had been channeled to Tantular and Rp 248 billion and Rp 854 had been distributed to Anton Tantular and Hartawan Alwi, respectively for a total of Rp 1.38 trillion. The Antaboga-Century saga began late last year when hundreds of worried investors were unable to redeem their Antaboga investments after its selling agent Century was taken over by the government amid signs of financial distress. Tantular, who also owns Antaboga, is suspected of having diverted customers' funds into 62 bank accounts. The central bank has reportedly frozen these accounts, but has not yet calculated the total amount involved as the case is still being investigated by PPATK and the police. |
| Posted by:Fred |