Fana Suparman & Christian Lee, Jakarta – The Corruption Eradication Commission, or KPK, arrested Kurniadie, the head of the Mataram Immigration Office in West Nusa Tenggara, Yusriansyah Fazrin, the head of the office's intelligence and enforcement division and Liliana Hidayat, the director of Happy Tourism, a company that manages the Wyndham Sundancer Resort Lombok, on Wednesday morning.
Kurniadie, Yusriansyah and two other officers from the Mataram Class I Immigration Office allegedly received bribes from Liliana to release two foreigners, a Singaporean national and an Australian national identified as B.G.W. and M.K. respectively, who had abused their tourist visas.
Kurniadie came out of the KPK building at around 1.45 a.m., followed by Liliana and Yusriansyah 15 minutes later. All of them were wearing the famous KPK orange vests, which signify their status as suspects.
KPK spokesman Febri Diansyah said the three of them are being detained in three separate detention centers.
Kurniadie is being held in a detention center at the old KPK building, Liliana in a detention center at the anti-graft agency's new headquarters and Yusriansyah at the Military Police's detention center in Guntur, South Jakarta. The three will be detained for at least the next 20 days.
KPK said it has obtained preliminary evidence that the officers did receive the bribes as alleged. The two foreign nationals have already been sent home to their countries.
KPK will be working together with Singapore's Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau and anti-corruption agencies in Australia to investigate the case.
B.G.W. and M.K. were in Lombok on tourist visas but soon started working at the Wyndham Sundancer Resort, which led to them being arrested by local immigration officers.
After hearing about their arrest, Liliana, the resort management's representative, tried to persuade officers at the Mataram Immigration Office to release the two foreigners.
Yusriansyah at first ignored her plea. The immigration office then issued Liliana a notification letter to begin an investigation (SPDP), which is allegedly a "code" for her to raise her bribe offer.
Liliana's next offer of Rp 300 million ($20,800) was rejected by Yusriansyah for being too low.
Yusriansyah reported the case to Kurniadi, his superior. They then began negotiations with Liliana again. They finally agreed Liliana would pay the two officers Rp 1.2 billion.