Footage of $50-million seizure falsely linked to Indonesia gambling bribery case

After police arrested a string of Indonesian officials accused of taking bribes from gambling website operators, a video made the rounds on TikTok purportedly showing wads of cash discovered during a raid at their office. The footage, viewed millions of times, actually shows cash seized from a company investigated for money laundering.

The footage shows a group of men in red uniforms rifling through drawers to reveal wads of cash stuffed inside.

“Viral video of Budi Arie’s office staff raided by the police, found an amazing amount of money!” read a TikTok post that shared the clip on November 12.

Ten staff from Indonesia’s communication and digital affairs ministry — formerly headed by Budi Arie Setiadi — were arrested for allegedly accepting bribes from operators of online gambling sites to help them skirt a government ban, police said on November 1 (archived link).

Seven other people have been arrested in the case, as of November 13.

“It’s truly crazy that Budi Arie’s special staff office was raided by the police and an unbelievable amount of money was found,” the TikTok post added, quoting Indonesian politician Ahmad Sahroni.

Sahroni shared the video alongside similar claims on Instagram.

The video racked up more than nine million views in a similar post on TikTok and also spread on YouTube.

The posts prompted a wave of comments from social media users who appeared to believe the video genuinely showed a raid at the ministry.

“Arrest Budi Arie,” one wrote.

“Which government can we trust anymore?” another said.

$50-million cash seizure

While Indonesian police genuinely searched the communication and digital affairs ministry on November 1, the footage shared on TikTok shows a different operation (archived link).

A keyword search on YouTube found similar footage in a news report from October 3 posted by Indonesian channel Metro TV (archived link).

According to the report, a series of Attorney General’s Office raids at the properties of Duta Palma Group, a corporation involved in the palm oil plantation business, led to the seizure of 822 billion Indonesian rupiah (51.8 million dollars).

Metro TV’s YouTube video shows the same search operation filmed from a different angle.

The same men in red uniforms — which bear the logo of Indonesia’s Attorney General’s Office — can be seen in both videos, alongside the same drawers full of cash.

Below is comparison of the video shared in false posts (left) and Metro TV’s video (centre and right), with similarities highlighted.

The Attorney General’s Office subsequently said a further raid on the corporation — which was suspected of money laundering — increased the total seized cash to 1.1 trillion rupiah (archived link).

A spokesman for the Attorney General’s Office confirmed the video was unrelated to the ministry gambling case.

“The video shows a search conducted by our men in another case, involving investigation into money laundering by a company called Duta Palma,” Harli Siregar, the Attorney General Office’s spokesperson told AFP on November 13.