REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA -- The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) investigators have arrested eight people, including Mesuji District Head Khamami, on graft charges. They will face further investigation in Jakarta, the KPK spokesman stated.
"The preliminary investigation has been conducted in Lampung. Today, all or several of those arrested will be transported to the KPK headquarters for further investigation," the anti-graft body's spokesman, Febri Diansyah, informed journalists here on Thursday.
According to Diansyah, the number of suspects to be transported to the KPK headquarters in Jakarta on Thursday morning or afternoon was determined by the investigators after considering their real requirements for the investigation process. The eight suspects, including individuals representing the private sector, were arrested in the areas of Bandarlampung City as well as the districts of Mesuji and Central Lampung during a raid that the KPK investigators had conducted on early Thursday.
During the raid, the anti-graft body's investigators seized a cardboard box containing banknotes of Rp100 thousand denomination, Diansyah noted. The amount of money in the box was estimated to reach around Rp1 billion.
The money might be part of the fees for last year's infrastructure projects of the Mesuji Public Works and People's Housing Office, he stated. Khamami being taken into custody marks the first arrest made by the anti-graft body this year.
Corruption crimes involving regional leaders remain a serious problem in Indonesia. In April 2018, Chief of the Task Force of Prevention Coordination and Supervision of KPK Asep Rahmat Suwandha revealed that 93 regional leaders, including 18 governors and 75 district heads and city mayors, had been named suspects in corruption.
Several of them had also been tried and convicted, Suwandha remarked, adding that 12 of the 93 regional leaders, implicated in corruption last year, were from West Java Province. Hence, West Java had the largest number of heads of district administration named corruption suspects by the KPK among 34 provinces of the country, he added.
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