Devi Asmarani, Jakarta – A multi-million-dollar scandal involving an agro-business company has put several Indonesian officials, including Vice-President Hamzah Haz, under the spotlight for publicly endorsing investment schemes that have now left thousands broke.

Police have declared the owner of PT Qurnia Subur Alam Raya (QSAR), Ramli Araby, a suspect after he ran off with more than 500 billion rupiah owed to about 6,500 people from across the country.

Among the investors are top government officials, parliamentary members, high-ranking military officers and journalists. But many are ordinary office workers and housewives who have invested anywhere from two million to billions of rupiah of their savings, hoping to multiply their investment quickly.

Several wives of senior parliamentarians are known to be the company's investors. And their husbands, including National Assembly Speaker Amien Rais and parliamentary Deputy Speaker Tosari Wijaya, have visited the company's farmlands in separate highly publicised occasions.

President Megawati Sukarnoputri also attended a ceremony to launch one of the company's facilities when she was still Vice-President early last year.

But the criticism has been directed mainly at Vice-President Hamzah Haz, who visited the company's farmland in April and publicly praised its business achievements, even though the company was on the verge of bankruptcy.

Mr Hamzah has defended his visit, saying it was meant to promote "exports of agricultural products".

Established by Ramli and his brother, Mr Ramlan Baskara, in 1997, the company started out by growing and exporting vegetables such as tomatoes, potatoes, peppers and cabbages.

Within a short period, dozens of people investing in the company began reaping profits from the exports, especially since the rupiah's value continued to plunge.

It then started offering the public financial schemes, in which investors were promised profits of as much as 45 per cent of their investment within three months. The company then expanded to livestock farming and even the tourism business, and its clients kept growing.

But since February this year, it has been having difficulties paying soaring dividends to its clients.

Ramli has promised to reimburse all the money by this month, but he and the rest of the company's executives have disappeared since his meeting with representatives of the investors last month.

Mr Rodri Zulkarnaen, a marketing executive in a private company, said: "I invested 250 million rupiah late last year, and I'm afraid I have lost it all."

Since Ramli's disappearance, some of the investors have tried to seize the company's assets. They took computers from its abandoned office buildings, and some took the company's cars, motorcycles and buses. There were also efforts to divide up the company's 1,680 ha of farmland.

The investors are now filing a lawsuit in an attempt to get their money back.

Many people have criticised the government for turning a blind eye to the scandal for so long, and questioned the police's sluggishness in investigating the scam. They also blamed government officials for giving permits and even promoting enterprises with dubious credibility.