Jailed Indonesian tax official, family had fake Guyanese passports

Jan 20, 2011 News

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– claims CIA agent arranged them

An Indonesian tax official who was jailed yesterday in a high profile case in that country for bribery had acquired fake Guyana passports and from all indications was planning to flee there to escape prosecution.
This was disclosed yesterday by Indonesian law enforcement officials who also said that sons of the lowly tax official who amassed millions in ill-gotten gains and was accused of bribing judges, also managed to acquire fake Guyana passports.
News agency yesterday reported that in addition to a seven-year sentence that exposed rampant Government graft, Gayus Tambunan was also fined 300 million rupiah (US$30,000) after being found guilty of corruption.

Crowds booed and jeered when the judge read the verdict, which was less than the 20 years demanded by the prosecutors. Prosecutors plan to appeal.
Gayus’s case came into the spotlight after he cooperated with the police to become a whistle-blower and expose the corruption in almost all aspect of the Indonesian judiciary system.
“This case has been influenced by many sides to make me look like public enemy number one in Indonesia,” Gayus said after the verdict.
“I’m really disappointed with the legal system mafia task force (formed to combat corruption in the judiciary system), who didn’t investigate the high level officials and instead politicized the issue.”
Gayus first came to national attention when he was arrested for bribing the judges, prosecutors and the police with more than US$2 million to have his corruption case dismissed. He was initially accused of helping companies evade taxes.
Police later revealed that the lowly tax official, despite earning a modest income a month, had reportedly amassed millions of dollars in cash and assets.
Gayus stirred anger in the country when he was photographed in Bali watching a tennis tournament when he was supposed to be in custody for his corruption case. He said he was in need of a holiday after feeling “stressed out” in prison.
He later admitted that he had escaped from prison at least 68 times by bribing the guards. He said he has taken trips to various destinations, including Macau, with fake passports obtained from the immigration office.
“Gayus is just the tip of the iceberg. His case indicates rampant corruption in the judiciary system, the tax office and the immigration office but the main issue seems to be avoided,” said Adrianus Meliala, a criminology professor and police observer.
“For instance, the police investigation didn’t include where the funds were funneled. This case doesn’t surprise me because corruption has become a culture in the tax office and this shows that the reform process is far from finished.”
The case prompted the country’s President to order authorities to look into dozens of companies allegedly linked to Gayus and recover state assets.
Tambunan, after the court case, claimed that John Jerome Grice, the alleged maker of his fraudulent Guyanese passport, was a CIA agent.
“John Grice is a CIA agent,” Gayus said after his sentence was read at the South Jakarta District Court.
Grice is a US citizen and is currently on the National Police’s most wanted list.
It was discovered recently that Gayus had travelled to several countries with a fraudulently obtained Indonesian passport under the name Sony Laksono.
Yesterday,  Brigadier General Agung Sabar Santoso, the National Police Chief of transnational crimes, said they found that Gayus’s three sons had fake Guyanese passports as well.

“There isn’t only a fake Guyanese passport for Gayus and his wife, Milana Aggraeni, but for all three sons as well,” he told reporters.
In addition, he said they also found fake birth certificates apparently meant for three sons, “but with fake, French-sounding names.”
Authorities have earlier found e-mailed copies of Guyanese passports sent by John Jerome Grice to Arie Nur Irawan, a member of an alleged passport ring who supposedly took the photo used in one of Gayus’s false documents.
In a news conference on Tuesday, National Police spokesman Sr. Comr. Boy Rafli Amar said the e-mailed passport copies had photos of a man “resembling Gayus,” and woman who looked like his wife, Milana Anggraeni.
One passport was under the name of Yosep Morris, born on May 9, 1979, in Georgetown, Guyana’s capital. Another document, with the photo of a woman resembling Milana, was under the name Ann Morris, born on May 6, 1979, also in Georgetown.
Boy said investigators “would contact the Guyanese Embassy in Jakarta to establish the authenticity of the documents.”
Police have asked Interpol to issue a red notice to arrest and deport Grice, said to have lived and worked in Jakarta starting in 2007 as a business consultant. Officials said Grice left Jakarta in July.
He was reportedly introduced to Gayus through J or Joko, a middleman arrested but later released on suspicions that he played a part in helping Gayus obtain fake travel documents.
The former tax official, on trial for graft and bribery, also used a fake passport under the name Sony Laksono, with a photo of him wearing a wig and glasses as a disguise.
Boy said on Monday that police believed Grice was the “intellectual actor” behind the Sony Laksono passport, which authorities said was authentic but that its contents had been tampered with.
A police source had also told the Globe that Grice helped Gayus obtain Guyanese citizenship. But Boy said the claim was still being investigated.
Gayus used the falsified passport to make trips to Macau, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore when he was supposed to have been detained at the Mobile Brigade (Brimob) detention facility in Depok, West Java.
The ensuing controversy prompted President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to issue 12 specific instructions on Monday to speed up the ongoing probe into Gayus’s alleged crimes.
He issued the directives hours after announcing that he would take a more hands-on approach in the fight against corruption.
One of the president’s orders was for law enforcers to look into the 149 companies said to have benefited from the former tax official’s illegal services.
“If the investigation suggests that there is enough preliminary evidence indicating violations, they should also be probed,” the president said.

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