The People’s Consultative Assembly (MPR) supports the Police Force’s efforts to protect people from frauds behind the facade of investment, such as by educating the public and punishing perpetrators.
“There must be media platforms or means for the public to confirm whether this investment is (legitimate),” MPR Chairperson Bambang Soesatyo said in a statement here on Tuesday.
Soesatyo also lauded the Police Force’s initiation to involve several related institutions, such as the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Financial Services Authority, Investment Coordinating Board, and Commodity Futures Trading Supervisory Agency, to coordinate with one another in disseminating information to the community.
He stated that such cases of frauds in the garb of investment had been ongoing since long and not something that had only occurred recently.
Head of the National Police’s Security Maintenance Agency, Inspector General Arief Sulistyanto, noted that earlier cases of fraud parading as investment were handled by the Police Force, including the case of the Langit Biru Cooperative in 2007 in which nearly 125 thousand people fell victim and the case of Wahana Globalindo, with victims reaching 38 thousand people and losses amounting to Rp6.2 trillion.
As technology begins to be extensively used in the investment sector today, several people complain about the rise in illegal investment practices. As a result, there were extensive losses, one of which was the Binomo binary options trading.
“I agree with the Director of Economic and Special Crimes at the Criminal Investigation Agency. It is not enough to just investigate fraud disguised as investment. Another measure is (determining) how to anticipate, who should supervise, who should take action, and (all of those) need to be done immediately,” he remarked.
Regulations or laws that set strict sanctions were also deemed necessary, as the manner of handling of current fraud cases differed from before.
The Criminal Code and the Information and Electronic Transactions Law (ITE) were not sufficient, as the perpetrators have used information technology to erase their proofs, thereby making investigation more difficult.
Source: Antara News