Jakarta. Prosecutors on Tuesday detained a businessman whose company, Luwu Agung Mining, is accused of stealing and selling nickel ores from mines in Southeast Sulawesi, which are managed by the state-owned mining firm Aneka Tambang or Antam.

Windu Aji Sutanto was temporarily placed in custody at the detention facility of the Attorney General's Office in Jakarta, and he will be transferred to Southeast Sulawesi prosecutors for further investigation, the AGO said in a statement.

Previously, Luwu Agung Mining and Antam had signed an operational partnership agreement to extract nickel ores from mining areas in the Mandiodo Block in North Konawe regency. Antam had won the concession for the Mandiodo Block from the government.

The joint operations also involved a municipally-owned company from the regency. However, Luwu Agung falsely claimed that the nickel ores were extracted from other areas and illegally used documents from a local mining company, Kabaena Kromit Pratama, to sell them to several smelters in Morosi and Morowali.

"The suspect, identified as WAS, as the owner of Luwu Agung Mining, is the person who gained benefits from this nickel mining corruption," the AGO said, referring to Windu by his initials.

According to the agreement, all nickel ores taken from the Mandiodo Block were supposed to be handed over to Antam, while Luwu Agung was to be paid solely as a contractor for mining works. 

However, Luwu Agung Mining instead employed 39 mining companies as its own contractors to extract nickel ores and sold them using false documents.

The crime has been ongoing for more than two years, partly due to a "permissive attitude" by the Antam management itself, as per the AGO statement. The state loss from the scandal is estimated at Rp 5.7 trillion ($380 million). 

The Southeast Sulawesi Prosecutor's Office had previously named four suspects in the case, identified as HW, the general manager at Antam’s North Konawe operation; AA, the CEO of Kabaena Kromit Pratama; GL, an executive of Luwu Agung Mining; and OS, the CEO of Luwu Agung Mining.

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