The trial for Indonesia’s biggest ever religious-based travel scam — at least in terms of the amount of money robbed from customers — came to an end today with a lengthy prison sentence for the scammer.
The Makassar District Court this morning sentenced Abu Tours travel agency boss Hamzah Mamba to 20 years in prison and a fine of IDR500 million for embezzling IDR1.2 trillion (US$85.25 million) in Umra pilgrimage money his agency collected from customers using the lure of cheap travel packages.
“Failure to pay the fine will result in an additional one year and four months’ imprisonment,” head judge Denny Lumban said at the sentencing hearing today, as quoted by Detik.
The judges’ decision was in line with the prosecution’s indictment and sentence demand. Hamzah was granted one week to consider mounting an appeal.
According to the police, over 50,000 customers had paid for the company’s Umra travel package. But authorities say the agency lost their money, partly due to reinvestment and partly because it was used to fund the lavish lifestyles of its owners.
The agency was reported to the police in March of last year after it failed to send its paying customers on the optional pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia. Even with Hamzah’s conviction, there still seems to be little to no possibility of refund for their customers.
While the embezzled amount is the biggest recorded among similar scams, the scandal surrounding Abu Tours didn’t receive nearly as much coverage as the scheme of another travel agency, First Travel, mainly due to the latter’s more high-profile owners. The bosses of First Travel, who robbed thousands of Umra customers of IDR848 billion, used the money even more lavishly than Hamzah reportedly did, such as when its co-founder Anniesa Hasibuan spent US$200,000 to enter her Muslim fashion line into the New York Fashion Week in 2017.
Anniesa and her husband, who also co-founded First Travel, were sentenced to 18 and 20 years in prison respectively last year.
Amid numerous reports of pilgrimage travel scams, the Financial Services Authority (OJK) last year warned of potentially even more fraudulent travel agencies luring in customers with unrealistically low priced tour packages.
