Indonesia raids gold company in $1.4B laundering probe

Staff Writer | June 11, 2026 | 4:37 am Regulatory Issues Asia Gold 

(Stock image by Vitoria Holdings LLC.)

Indonesia’s national police raided on Thursday a gold processing company as part of a 25 trillion rupiah ($1.44 billion) investigation into alleged money laundering linked to illegal mining operations across the country.

Investigators from the Directorate of Special Crime conducted coordinated searches on Feb. 19 at three locations in East Java and seized processing facilities owned by PT Simba Jaya Utama, according to local media reports citing police official Ade Safri Simanjuntak. 

Authorities said last month they had identified five suspects connected to the case. The investigation covers gold transactions between 2019 and 2025 and involves illegal mining operations in regions including Kalimantan and Papua.

“This investigation underscores our commitment to cracking down on all parties involved in illegal mining operations, including those who store, exploit, process, refine or sell unlawfully sourced gold,” Ade said.

The probe highlights the growing scale of Indonesia’s illegal mining industry as soaring gold prices drive expansion across the archipelago. 

The Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (PPATK) estimated transactions linked to illegal gold mining reached 185 trillion rupiah between 2023 and 2025, with more than 155 trillion rupiah traced to accounts allegedly controlled by major operators. 

The National Police Criminal Investigation Agency has identified 1,517 illegal mining sites across Indonesia this year, extracting commodities ranging from gold and tin to coal. 

According to environmental group Auriga Nusantara, the area affected by illegal gold mining expanded from 366 hectares in 2021 to 7,232 hectares in 2023, underscoring the rapid growth of the sector.

Indonesia’s military-backed forestry task force took in January over 8,800 hectares of land where nickel, coal, quartz sand and limestone were being mined. It also seized palm plantations across 4.1 million hectares (10.1 million acres), an area roughly the size of the Netherlands.