Farouk Arnaz & Nivell Rayda – He was an unknown tax official a few weeks ago, but when Gayus Tambunan arrived in Jakarta on Wednesday afternoon, a mob of hundreds of journalists and curious onlookers awaited him.

As police and officials escorted Gayus out of Soekarno-Hatta Inter-national Airport, many shouted "thief... thief... thief" at the 30-year-old civil servant, who appeared unperturbed.

His return comes a week after he fled the country and barely a day after Indonesian officials flew to Singapore to persuade him to return.

Two members of the Judicial Mafia Eradication Task Force, Denny Indrayana and Mas Achmad Santosa, went to Singapore on Tuesday evening to meet the fugitive and talked with him for two hours at the Lucky Plaza shopping mall on busy Orchard Road.

"The team emphasized several things to persuade Gayus to return to Jakarta," Denny said in an e-mail to the Jakarta Globe.

"Gayus's passport used to enter Singapore is a fake, because his original passport had been revoked. Gayus entered the country illegally and thus could be prosecuted by the Singaporean authorities."

It was therefore only a matter of time before Singapore police would arrest him.

At about 11 p.m. on Tuesday, Gayus, Denny and Santosa met with National Police chief detective Comr. Gen. Ito Sumardi, several Indonesian Embassy officials and Singapore police.

"Gayus eventually agreed to return to Indonesia," Ito said. "We tried hard to persuade Gayus to return home, and we promised to be professional in handling his case by upholding presumption of innocence," Ito said.

Minister of Justice and Human Rights Patrialis Akbar said that at the behest of the task force "we immediately issued an SPLP," a travel document in lieu of passport, to allow Gayus to return.

Upon landing, Gayus was rushed under tight police escort to the National Police headquarters for questioning by an independent team, not the police detective unit that had originally handled his case.

The mid-ranking tax official first caught the attention of the National Police after his bank account mysteriously ballooned to Rp 28 billion ($3.1 million).

But instead of charging Gayus with money-laundering, police opted for the lesser charge of embezzlement. The Tangerang district court in Banten later acquitted Gayus of all charges.

But he was thrust into the headlines after the former National Police chief detective told the task force that Gayus had bribed senior police to build a weaker case and allow him to access his previously frozen account.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono hopes the case will serve as an entry point for reform of the tax office and law-enforcement agencies, his spokesman Julian Aldrin Pasha said.

Vice presidential spokesman Yopie Hidayat said the case "unraveled an Achilles' heel in tax collection. Tax tribunals must be given extra monitoring. The vice president applauds [Finance Minister] Sri Mulyani Indrawati's action to suspend all officials with indications of corruption."

Gayus's lawyer Haposan Hutagalung and Comr. Arafat Enanie of the National Police economic crimes division were declared as bribery suspects on Tuesday. Businessman Andi Kosasih, who allegedly provided Gayus with Rp 25 billion, is charged with giving false testimony.

The Attorney General's Office said on Tuesday that an internal inquiry had found suspected violations of procedures.

[Additional Reporting by Camelia Pasandaran & Antara.]