Feeling toothless in its efforts to enforce the anti-money laundering law, the Financial Transaction Reports Analysis Center (PPATK) is demanding greater authority to investigate allegations of money laundering and freeze any accounts linked with the crime.
"All this time we have only been able to provide raw materials in the form of intelligence reports on allegations of money laundering to the police. The next steps depend solely on the action of law enforcers," PPATK director for law and regulation affairs Iktut Sudiharsa said Monday.
Both he and Teten Masduki of Indonesian Corruption Watch said legal proceedings for money laundering cases are often lengthy. "And by the time law enforcers come into the process of checking the alleged bank accounts, the money has gone," Sudiharsa said.
The extending of PPATK's authority to include freezing accounts, tapping communication channels and blocking access to alleged assets is among the points in a draft amendment of the 2003 Money Laundering Law currently under deliberation in the legislature.
"At the very least, with the extended authority to investigate we can cook up the raw material of our analysis before they are needed by the police," Sudiharsa said.
"The center is not yet functioning as expected because it can only act as a kind of intelligence unit, which provides analyses for the police," Teten said, adding that PPATK's analyses are regarded only as preliminary investigation results and not as evidence.
"The police, therefore, cannot determine any suspect before they reinvestigate the report," he said, adding that the authority to freeze alleged accounts would be useful for preventing perpetrators from eliminating evidence.
According to Sudiharsa, by the end of May, PPATK had filed 480 analysis reports with the police from the 740 suspicious transaction reports submitted to the center.
"However, we are not able to learn how many of the analysis reports we've sent have been filed into cases by the police," he said.
"All I know is that the courts have made verdicts on eight cases."
However, because the term "money laundering" is still new to many judges, he said, most cases are tried as corruption cases.
The center has also raised the need to extend its range of informants to include three sectors: financial service firms such as banks, insurance and security firms; professionals such as accountants and lawyers; and providers of services and goods such as real estate firms, automobile dealers, jewelers and auction houses.
"The amendment of the law will oblige those sectors to report transactions to the PPATK," Sudiharsa said, adding that those who failed to report could face a two-year jail term or a Rp 500 million fine.
"The informants are protected by the law, yet they could be prosecuted if law enforcers discover they are trying to hide information or cooperating with the perpetrator of money laundering," he said.
Source : www.thejakartapost.com
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