Video shows police searching mining boss' house, not home of Indonesian president's son-in-law
- Published on August 30, 2024 at 03:59
- 4 min read
- By AFP Indonesia
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The clip, showing a group of officers at the gates of a house reading a warrant authorising them to search it, was shared in a Facebook post on August 17, 2024.
"The house of Jokowi's son-in-law (Bobby Nasution), North Sumatra governor hopeful supported by the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), is being searched by the joint forces," it read.
Text on the video went on to say: "Two houses owned by Bobby, the owner of BJP corp., in two different locations in Muara Enim, searched by the joint task force, Wednesday (August 14, 2024)."
It also included a quote from an officer involved in the operation that read: "The search of two luxury houses owned by Bobby is conducted to follow up the investigation of an illegal mining case that has disturbed the community and is detrimental to the country."
The clip was shared ahead of regional elections in November, in which Nasution plans to run for governor of the North Sumatra province (archived links here and here).
He is currently the mayor of the province's capital Medan City and is supported by several parties, including the PKS.
As of August 28, AFP could not find official reports of Nasution having his house searched by officers.
The clip also circulated as Jokowi prepared to leave office in October after a decade in power, facing criticism for alleged attempts to create his own political dynasty and retain political influence.
His elder son will serve as the country's next vice president after candidate eligibility rules were changed by Jokowi's brother-in-law and then-chief justice, while plans to change election rules to allow his other son to contest upcoming regional polls were only halted after thousands protested outside parliament (archived link).
The false post was also shared elsewhere on Facebook here, here and here, as well as on social media platform X, racking up more than 184,000 views in total.
But the clip does not show Nasution's house being searched.
Illegal mining case
A reverse Image search on Google using keyframes from the false video revealed a longer version was published on the TikTok account of South Sumatran news outlet Sumsel_24detik on August 15 (archived link).
The full video shows officers searching two houses. It was published with a caption saying they were owned by the head of mining company Bobby Jaya Perkasa Corp -- who was identified in the report as "Bobby".
Below is a screenshot comparison between the video used in the false post (left) and the clip uploaded by Sumsel_24detik (right):
A report on the Sumsel Viral website also included similar photos and said the company was alleged to have conducted an illegal mining operation in South Sumatra (archived link).
It said a joint task force consisting of local and regional police officers searched the houses for evidence.
The searches were also covered by local media outlet IDN Times (archived link).
The Indonesian national police published a report about the searches on its website, and included photos of the operation.
Officers seen in these embedded photos appeared to match those shown in the false post.
Below is a screenshot comparison between the video in the false post (left) and a photo on the Indonesian police website (right):
None of the reports stated the individual was Bobby Nasution.
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