Robert Go, Jakarta – Indonesian police yesterday scoured exclusive watering holes and five-star hotels in the capital in a massive hunt for the country's best-known fugitive. Meanwhile, regional police went through the Suharto family's estates throughout the country in search of Hutomo "Tommy" Mandala Putra.

South Jakarta prosecutor Antasari Azhar announced earlier that the government was offering a financial reward – the amount is unspecified as yet – to citizens who can provide information leading to Hutomo's arrest. Jakarta's chief detective Senior Superintendent Harry Montolalu invited Indonesians to make a citizen's arrest if they saw him.

However, it seems that the government's searches and offers amount to looking under the bed but failing to force open locked bedside drawers. Looking for Hutomo in his known hangouts or in his family's hideouts will most probably yield little more than scared house-staff and empty chambers.

The Suharto family can also out-pay any government bounty and their private army can certainly stop attempts at citizen's arrests. The police failed to do the obvious: keep Hutomo under surveillance in the weeks before the issue of his arrest warrants. A growing suspicion is that such incompetence can only have come about by design.