China offers Indonesia judicial assistance in financial fraud case

Chinese authorities will cooperate with Indonesia to confiscate more than $500 million of ill-gotten assets illegally transferred to China by corrupt Indonesian banking officials. The cooperation is in response to a request for judicial assistance made by Yasonna H. Laoly, minister of the Indonesian Ministry of Laws and Human Rights, during the 54th Annual Session of the Asian-African Legal Consultative Organisation, held in Beijing in April 2015. Under the Treaty on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters between China and Indonesia that took effect in 2006, the Ministry of Justice will support the Indonesian judicial authorities in the areas of financial intelligence exchanges and the collection of evidence to identify assets as dirty money, seize the funds, and freeze the accounts. After receiving their formal documents to request judicial assistance, Chinese judicial authorities will conduct further investigations and offer Indonesian officials evidence to help them recover the illegal proceeds. The case dates to 2008, when the global financial crisis gripped Asian countries, and the Indonesian government asked the Indonesian Bank to invest $565 million in the Indonesian Century Bank to avoid bankruptcy and the collapse of its banking system. According to Indonesian judicial authorities, senior managers of the Indonesian Bank allegedly abused their power to help others embezzle the assets and transfer the proceeds to Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland through money laundering.

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