Video from money laundering raid falsely linked to Indonesia oil corruption case

Published on March 13, 2025 at 10:33
2 min read
By Felix NATHANIEL, AFP Indonesia

After Indonesian authorities announced the arrest of several oil executives for alleged graft in February, unrelated footage of officials finding wads of cash in a room surfaced online. The clip actually shows an October 2024 raid on the office of a palm oil firm investigated for money laundering.

"This is the safe where the money from the sale of Pertalite mixed into Pertamax is stored," reads the Indonesian-language text overlay of a clip posted on February 27, 2025 on the SnackVideo platform. It refers to gasoline names that Indonesia's state-owned energy firm PT Pertamina sells.

The video shows several people dressed in red searching a room where they find cash inside cardboard boxes and suitcases.

Screenshot of the false SnackVideo post, taken on March 12, 2025

Indonesia's attorney general's office said on February 25 it had arrested executives from subsidiaries of PT Pertamina in an alleged $12 billion graft case (archived link).

The suspects are accused of working together between 2018 and 2023 to import crude from overseas suppliers at higher prices rather than source it domestically as mandated by Indonesian law.

The case also involved a petrol blending process that is "not permitted", according to the attorney general's office (archived link).

The video has racked up more than 300,000 views in other posts on SnackVideo and TikTok.

But the video shows cash seized from a company investigated for money laundering, AFP reported in an earlier fact-check, after the clip was misrepresented as a bribery raid.

A keyword search on YouTube found corresponding footage from a press conference posted on the channel of the Attorney General's Office on October 3, 2024. Its title says: "Seizure of cash amounting to 372 billion Indonesian rupiah related to the case of PT Duta Palma Corporation" (archived link).

A news report from Indonesian channel Metro TV on the same day also included a similar video of the search operation (archived link).

According to the report, a series of raids by the office at the properties of the Duta Palma Group, a corporation involved in the palm oil plantation business, led to the seizure of over 1.4 trillion ruipah ($85.2 million).

Screenshot comparison of the false post (L) and the video from the Attorney General's Office with corresponding elements highlighted

"The video shows a search conducted by our men in another case, involving an investigation into money laundering by a company called Duta Palma," said Harli Siregar, the Attorney General's Office spokesperson, earlier told AFP.

As of March 2025, investigation into the case was still ongoing.

Is there content that you would like AFP to fact-check? Get in touch.

E-mail