This is one of the crazier con stories we’ve heard in Jakarta. The fraudsters in question preyed upon their victim’s sense of religious duty, friendliness towards strangers and trust in the rich. It’s disgusting but, at the same time, kind of impressive.
The two con men who conjured up this scheme are David Krisnan and Irwan Baso. Their con took place on August 27. David, Irwan and an accomplice named Andi searched for victims in the Atrium Senen shopping center in Central Jakarta.
The three of them were looking for the victim by pretending like they wanted to donate Rp. 50 million to the Istiqlal Mosque. David then targeted the victim, Mohammad Masruri whom he met by chance in the shopping center.
David claimed to be a citizen of Brunei and invited Masruri to chat. During that conversation, David said he would like to donate to Jakarta’s most famous mosque, but did not know how to because, as you’ll remember, he was pretending to be someone from Brunei.
Masruri saw David’s noble intentions and said he would like to help. When David said he wanted to go to Istiqlal, Irwan and Andi suddenly appeared to offer them a ride to the Mosque. When they arrived at Istiqlal, David said he wasn’t carrying any cash. This resulted in them going with Masruri to an ATM in Gajah Mada.
After reaching the ATM, David showed Masruri that his ATM balance was Rp 9 billion. Then he proposed send the Rp. 50 million donation through Masruri.
“The victim pretended to have Rp. 9 billion. But he said he could not return to Istiqlal because he had important matters to attend,” prosecutor Maylany Wuwung wrote in the indictment, obtained by Detik today.
Masruri said he was ready to transfer the money to Istiqlal, but David said he wanted proof, so he asked Masruri to show him his ATM card. Without thinking, Masruri give 2 of his ATM cards to David to note their serial numbers. Masruri then inserted his ATM cards into the machine to shows David the balances of his accounts.
David returned a card to Masruri, but it was not Masruri’s card, a card for an account with a balance of Rp 56 million.
“David promised to send him Rp. 50 million in the morning on August 28. But it was just a ruse. David and his friends had switched out the victim’s ATM card with a fake and memorized his PIN while the victim was checking his balances,” wrote Maylani in the indictment.
David left his victims around noon. David went down to the street with Masruri and provided him with a taxi fare of Rp 300,000.
In the afternoon, Masruri tried to take money from an ATM. But then he noticed his ATM card has been changed and he could not access his accounts, He immediately went to his bank to check his account balance. And, of course, the entire Rp. 56 million from one of his accounts was missing.
Masruri reported the incident to the police. One month later, the police were able to arrest the perpetrator by tracking his ATM transactions. But the police only managed to catch David and Irwan, while Andy is still at large.
And what about the balance of Rp. 9 billion that was supposedly in David’s account? Apparently, from the results of the investigation, the conmen used an ATM, owned and rigged by David to display the fake account balance.
The two defendants are awaiting the verdict from the judge in their case in the Central Jakarta District Court. It is not the first time either man had committed fraud.
