February 11, 2026 | 08:47 am
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The Attorney General's Office (AGO) has uncovered alleged state losses in a corruption case involving irregularities in crude palm oil (CPO) and palm oil mill effluent (POME) exports from 2022 to 2024. Syarief Sulaeman Nahdi, Director of Investigations at the Attorney General's Office for Special Crimes (Jampidsus), stated that auditors have tentatively calculated the state financial losses, or lost revenue, at Rp10 trillion to Rp14 trillion.
Syarief explained that the state financial losses stemmed from a decrease in tax rates. The state should have imposed a CPO tax. However, the perpetrators disguised CPO exports as POME exports, thus paying lower taxes. "The CPO tax is much higher than the POME tax. Much higher," he said at the Attorney General's Office's Special Crimes Building on Tuesday, February 10, 2026.
He stated that the state's economic losses arose because CPO flowed abroad, reducing the CPO quota for the domestic market. Syarief said the perpetrators manipulated the exports to evade CPO export control policies and tax avoidance. In the 2020–2024 period, the government imposed restrictions and controls on CPO exports through the Domestic Market Obligation (DMO) mechanism.
This policy requires CPO producers wishing to export their products to set aside or prioritize a percentage of their production for the domestic market. However, to continue exporting CPO, the suspects circumvented this regulation. They made commodities that were essentially CPO appear as if they were not, thereby exempting or receiving relief from the state's obligations.
In this case, the Attorney General's Office (AGO) has named 11 suspects. Three of them are state officials: Fadjar Donny Thahjadi, the former Technical Director of Customs at the Directorate General of Customs and Excise (DJBC); Lila Harsyah Bakhtiar, Head of the Non-Food Plantation Products Industry Sub-Directorate and Senior Expert Industry Supervisor at the Directorate of Forest Products Industry at the Ministry of Industry of the Republic of Indonesia; and Muhammad Zulfikar, Head of the Extension and Information Services Section at the Pekanbaru KPBC. The rest comes from the private sector.
Read: AGO Names 11 Suspects in CPO Export Corruption Case
Click here to get the latest news updates from Tempo on Google News
AGO Names 11 Suspects in CPO Export Corruption Case
41 menit lalu
The Attorney General's Office (AGO) has named 11 suspects in an alleged corruption case involving crude palm oil (CPO) exports.
Indonesia's Attorney General to Question Former Environment Minister Siti Nurbaya
10 hari lalu
The Attorney General's Office has conducted a search at the residence of former Minister of Environment and Forestry, Siti Nurbaya Bakar.
Six Locations Raided in Indonesian Palm Oil Corruption Investigation
11 hari lalu
Attorney General's Office raided six locations, including former Environment Minister Siti Nurbaya's Jakarta home, in a 2015-2024 palm oil corruption.
AGO Searches Ex-Minister Siti Nurbaya's House
11 hari lalu
The Attorney General's Office official confirmed that the residence of the former minister Siti Nurbaya has been searched.
Intelligence Clamps Down on Extorting Prosecutors
27 hari lalu
The AGO takes over the investigation of prosecutors arrested in a KPK sting operation. High-ranking AGO officials are suspected of putting pressure.
AGO: We Are Cleaning House
27 hari lalu
The AGO took over the investigation of the extortion case involving three prosecutors who were arrested in a KPK sting op.
The Prosecutors' Dirty Cleanup
28 hari lalu
The AGO is not serious about cleaning up its staff involved in extortion. A stance supported by the weak KPK.
Forestry Ministry Denies AGO Search Reports
33 hari lalu
The Forestry Ministry emphasized that the activity was data verification, not a search.
Why Internal Auditors Fail to Bark
34 hari lalu
Despite decades of bureaucratic reform, Indonesia's fight against corruption has hit a wall.
Indonesia's AGO Says It Is Ready to Enforce the New KUHP and KUHAP
39 hari lalu
Indonesia began enforcing its new KUHP and KUHAP on January 2, 2026, with the Attorney General's Office saying it is ready to implement the changes.
