Indonesia steps up fight against corruption

Indonesia's Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) on October 18 raided 10 locations, including the home of Lippo Group Deputy Chairman James Riady, as part of a bribery investigation linked to the firm's 21 billion-USD Meikarta property project.
Indonesia steps up fight against corruption ảnh 1A worker speaks on a phone in the Meikarta real estate project in Cikarang, Bekasi, east of Jakarta, Indonesia, October 15, 2018 in this photo taken by Antara Foto. (Antara Foto/Risky Andrianto/ via REUTERS)
Hanoi (VNA) - Indonesia's Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) on October 18 raided 10 locations, including the home of Lippo Group Deputy Chairman James Riady, as part of a bribery investigation linked to the firm's 21 billion-USD Meikarta property project.

The KPK’s spokesman Febri Diansyah said its investigators seized financial documents and computers during the raids, which targeted the home of Riady, a Lippo Group office and the home and office of top local government official Neneng Hasanah Yasin, one of nine suspects arrested by the KPK this week.

Yasin, Riady and other representatives of the Lippo Group did not respond immediately to requests for comment.

The raids were staged after the KPK arrested two Lippo Group consultants and an employee accused of trying to pay off city officials to obtain property permits for the Meikarta project.

The detained employees said they had been acting on instructions from Lippo director Billy Sindoro to bribe Yasin, who is the regent for West Java's Bekasi area where the Meikarta project is located.

Sindoro has also been arrested, as well as four other public servants. Investigators have confiscated almost 100,000 USD that they said had been intended as bribe money and suspect other instances of corruption.

Meikarta is Lippo's largest project to date. Once completed, it will include a centre for the automotive and electronic industries, five-star hotels, shopping malls, hospitals, and universities.-VNA
VNA

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