KPK officers spend 6 hours counting 33 bags filled with $1.5 million cash after graft arrest of Sea Transport Director

Stacks of the Indonesian rupiah next to stacks of the US dollar.
Stacks of the Indonesian rupiah next to stacks of the US dollar.

Despite being in the midst of investigating one the biggest corruption scandals in recent Indonesian history (and facing the political blowback from that investigation), the KPK is not letting up in its pursuit of dirty officials, yesterday announcing the shocking bust of a senior Transportation Ministry official found with a bedroom filled with bags of cash.

The Director General of the Department of Sea Transportation (Hubla), Antonius Tonny Budiono, was arrested by officers from the KPK at his official residence inside a mess complex in Gunung Sahari, Central Jakarta on Wednesday night.

During the arrest at his simple boarding house accommodations, KPK officials found 33 bags and suitcases containing money in the form of rupiah, US dollars, pound sterling, euros and Malaysian ringgit.

KPK Vice Chairman Basaria Panjaitan and his investigation team said the Rp 18.9 billion found in the bags (as well as an addition Rp 1.17 billion linked to ATM cards for fake bank accounts) was evidence in a bribery case against Tonny.

Basaria mentioned that the bags of money were found scattered around Tonny’s bedroom, not even locked inside any safes or lockers, and that the mess house did not even have a security guard.

“The bags were just in his mess room, if you can imagine that large an amount of money just sitting there,” Basara said as quoted by Tribun yesterday.

The KPK official said Tonny has a private home in South Tangerang but that he had been sleeping at the mess house for the 7 months agents had been investigating him.

According to Basaria, the Rp 20 billion found on Tonny came from bribes he received related to the licensing and procurement of a number of Hubla projects throughout 2016 and 2017, including some related to a dredging and reclamation project in Semarang.

KPK spokesman Febri Diansyah said that KPK officers spent six hours counting the banknotes contained in Tonny’s 33 suitcases and bags and that calculations had to be done using a counting machine.

“It was calculated using a money-counting machine, calculated from 9 am to 3 pm. There were two officers who counted, they used the machine, but it still took a long time,” Febri said.

The KPK investigators are still investigating to find out where all of the bribe money came from. Basaria said Tonny claims he is confused about what bribe money came from which party, as there were too many to remember.



Reader Interactions

Leave A Reply


BECOME A COCO+ MEMBER

Support local news and join a community of like-minded
“Coconauts” across Southeast Asia and Hong Kong.

Join Now
Coconuts TV
Our latest and greatest original videos
Subscribe on