JAKARTA: What started out as a viral bullying case involving a minor and implicating a local entrepreneur in Surabaya, East Java, has grown into an investigation into online gambling amid the government’s intensified crackdown on the practice, which has spread across the nation.
The case of entrepreneur Ivan Sugianto first surfaced following a video that went viral on social media earlier this month. The video showed him and several other men going to a high school in Surabaya to confront a student who had allegedly been bullying his son.
In the video, Ivan was seen forcing the student to kneel, apologise and bark, as the student reportedly made fun of his son’s hairstyle by likening it to that of a poodle. The school filed a police report shortly after the incident.
Several days later, another video was widely circulated on social media showing Ivan making a public apology to the student he approached in the previous video as well as his family, the school and the public.
Ivan also said in the video that he would turn himself in to the Surabaya Police. It remained unclear when the video was first recorded and published.
But before he surrendered to law enforcement, Surabaya Police investigators arrested him at the arrival terminal of Juanda International Airport last Thursday after he arrived in Surabaya from Jakarta.
The police charged him with harming a minor, a violation that carries a maximum sentence of 3.5 years in prison and a Rp 72 million (US$4,529) fine, according to the 2014 Child Protection Law.
He was also accused of committing violent threats with a maximum punishment of a year in prison under the Criminal Code.
In the days following his arrest, netizens posted photos of Ivan with high-ranking police and military officers, including posing in a car with a military colonel as well as a selfie with Surabaya Police criminal investigation unit deputy head Comr. Teguh Setiawan.
While the pictures raised concerns of legal impunity, authorities have dismissed such worries.
Indonesian Military (TNI) spokesperson Maj Gen. Hariyanto said the fact that Ivan befriended a colonel would not impede the legal process, while East Java Police spokesperson Sr. Comr. Dirmanto said that investigators remained focused on solving the case at hand, as reported by tempo.co.
Ivan faces increased scrutiny, after the Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Center (PPATK) froze around a dozen bank accounts owned by him because of suspicious activity pertaining to online gambling.
“We’re still analysing the accounts and forwarding the results to the [police] investigators,” PPATK spokesperson Natsir Kongah said on Wednesday.
The case has received wider attention since NasDem lawmaker Ahmad Sahroni visited him at the Surabaya Police headquarters on Sunday.
After the meeting, Sahroni, who is also a deputy chair of the House of Representatives Commission III overseeing law enforcement, urged the police to investigate the bullying case as well as the PPATK findings.
He also advised all parents to be more hands-on in preventing their children from bullying their peers as well as preventing adults from persecuting other people, as reported by Antara.
Reports of suspicious transactions involving Ivan’s bank account surfaced amid the government’s intensified crackdown on online gambling, which is illegal in Indonesia.
In recent weeks, police have arrested dozens of social media influencers as well as private sector and government workers, including some from within the Communications and Digital Ministry, for their alleged involvement in online gambling rings.
The government turned its attention to social media, urging platforms like X, Telegram, Google, Meta and TikTok to take a more proactive stance by blocking access to illegal gambling websites.
Authorities are currently considering dishing out sanctions if the platforms fail to obstruct access to illicit content.
While working with platforms may be key to cutting public access to illegal gambling sites, observers say that threatening the firms with sanctions such as blocking them in the country is not the most effective way to get the tech companies to cooperate. - The Jakarta Post/ANN
