Farouk Arnaz – The National Police announced on Friday that only two of 23 reports it had received from the antimoney laundering watchdog linking police officers to shady financial transactions pointed to criminal activity.

The 23 were among the 831 reports submitted to the police by the Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Center (PPATK) between 2005 and June this year.

"We've been able to categorize transactions from only two accounts as criminal," National Police spokesman Insp. Gen. Edward Aritonang said. "The first implicates Comr. Martin Reno, an officer with the Papua Police. He's already been tried and convicted in the case."

Reno was named a bribery suspect in 2005 after police suspected that inordinately large transfers into his bank account were linked to illegal logging activities.

Edward said the second officer implicated in criminal activity was Comr. Gen. Susno Duadji, the National Police's former chief of detectives.

A police source previously told the Jakarta Globe that investigators had traced large money transfers from Medan-based lawyer Johnny Situwanda to Susno.

Susno is currently in custody for allegedly taking a bribe from one of Johnny's clients to expedite an investigation into a business partner.

The controversial former chief of detectives has threatened to blow the whistle on large-scale bribery in the police involving high-ranking officers and case brokers.

Edward declined to go into details about the other 21 reports. "Reports filed by the PPATK can't be made public," he said. "They're categorized as confidential documents, and I for one don't want to break the law by revealing anything about the transactions and or account holders in question."

He also declined to confirm if any of the accounts were among those flagged by Tempo magazine. "The Tempo report didn't name a source, so I can't comment on something that's hazy to begin with," Edward said.

However, he did say police had questioned the officers implicated in the 23 PPATK reports and had concluded that there was nothing amiss in most of what the agency had flagged as suspicious transfers.

"The results of our investigations showed that 17 accounts were clean," he said. "We reported this to the PPATK, which, by the way, insists for some reason that we haven't gotten back to them on this issue."

Edward said the transactions attracting the PPATK's attention in the 17 accounts included the upgrading of rupiah accounts into foreign currency ones, transactions involving family-owned public transportation businesses and plantations, debt repayments, insurance payouts and inheritances.

Of the six remaining reports, investigations into two are still ongoing, while a probe into a third has been dropped, he said. "We called off one of the lines of investigation because the account holder had since died," Edward said.

Police suspended a probe into a fourth report "because the account holder is currently running for mayor" of an unspecified town.