Tim Alper is a journalist who covers betting news and regulation for CasinoBeats. He joined the CasinoBeats team in May 2025. He reports on breaking news and developments in the world of betting, casinos, and...
Read Full BioAn Indonesian court has sent nine former employees to prison as sentencing continues in a high-profile online casino protection racket case.
The Indonesian media outlet Tempo reported that the defendants were former Ministry of Communication and Information staffers.
The ex-ministry employees, the court heard, took money from intermediaries in exchange for helping exclude several online casino websites from an official blacklist. Sites that appear on the blacklist are subject to geoblocking orders.
Several intermediaries acted as go-betweens for the site operators, who handed over cash payments.
Protection Racket: Ministry Workers Jailed for 4-6 Years
Police have since arrested dozens of individuals, and prosecutors are trying them in four separate “clusters.”
Ministry staff comprise the second of these clusters, with courts trying several suspects at once.
In the latest judgment, a South Jakarta District Court spokesperson confirmed that the nine defendants were all found guilty of mishandling and manipulating sensitive government data.
Denden Imadudin Soleh was jailed for six years, minus time served in police custody, and fined IRP 1 billion ($60,770). Failure to pay the fine will result in an additional month in prison.
Multi-year Jail Terms
Three other former ministry employees (Riko Rasota Rahmada, Yoga Priyanka Sihombing, and Syamsul Arifin) were jailed for five years and eight months. They were also fined IRP 500 million ($30,380).
Yudha Rahman Setiadi was sentenced to five years behind bars and fined IRP 250 million ($15,190).
The remaining three (Reyga Radika, Muhammad Abindra Putra Tayip N., and V. Radyka Prima Wicaksana) received jail terms of four years and eight months in prison. The court also fined them 250 million.
The same district court has also jailed several other defendants in recent weeks. Late last month, judges sent Rajo Emirsyah, a man who laundered money for the gambling sites, to jail for 10 years.
Before this, the court handed another intermediary (Zulkarnaen Apriliantony) a prison sentence of nine years and an IRP 1 billion fine.
In an earlier report, Tempo also reported that the court jailed a woman named Darmawati, the wife of the suspected mastermind of the operation, for four years. A panel of judges also fined her IRP 250 million.
Judges: We Showed Leniency
The judges said they had shown leniency. They noted that Darmawati had “admitted her wrongdoings, had no prior convictions, and is the mother of three children who need attention and care.”
Prosecutors had asked the court to jail Darmawati for 12 years.
The court heard that Darmawati started receiving bundles of cash from her husband in early 2024. She claimed that she had no idea where the money came from, believing her husband to be the head of a successful cross-border trade firm.
Prosecutors explained that Darmawati bought three luxury cars with the money: a Lexus, a Toyota Fortuner, and a BMW X7. Darmawati spent a total of IRP 5.2 billion on the vehicles, paying in cash on each occasion.
Sentencing is slated to continue, with several defendants’ hearings scheduled over the next few weeks.
