Jakarta. The National Police have arrested a factory manager and confiscated hundreds of cartons and crates of Minyakita cooking oil during a raid at a packaging facility in Depok, a senior officer said on Tuesday.

The raid was part of a nationwide crackdown on fraudulent underfilling and overpricing of Minyakita, a government-subsidized cooking oil brand that should be sold under the price cap of Rp 15,700 per liter.

Brigadier General Helfi Assegaf, a director at the National Police’s Criminal Investigation Agency, said the facility had been manipulating the volume of Minyakita products, with bottles and pouch bags containing only 760–800 milliliters instead of 1 liter while being sold at Rp 18,000 per liter.

"The suspect has been operating since February, producing between 400 and 800 boxes of cooking oil daily in bottles or pouch bags," Helfi said during a press conference in Jakarta.

He added that the factory’s filling machines were pre-set for different volumes, confirming deliberate fraud.

“One machine was pre-set for 802 milliliters, while another was set for 760 milliliters," he explained.

During the Sunday raid, police confiscated 450 carton boxes of Minyakita, already loaded onto a truck for distribution, in addition to 250 crates of bottled cooking oil and 180 pouch bags of oil stored in the warehouse.

The factory manager, identified by the initials AWI, was arrested at the scene.

"He sourced bulk cooking oil and Minyakita packaging from different suppliers to process them at the factory," Helfi said.

Nationwide Crackdown on Fraudulent Cooking Oil Sales
The raid followed a report by Agriculture Minister Andi Amran Sulaiman, who flagged cases of underfilled and overpriced Minyakita during market inspections.

Helfi revealed that the Depok raid was initially meant to target Artha Eka Global Asia, one of three companies reported by the minister.

"However, when we arrived at the location, we found that the factory was registered under a different company, Aya Rasa Nabati, operating at the same address. We are still investigating the connection between these two companies," Helfi said.

Another company named in the minister’s report was Tunas Agro Indolestari in Tangerang, but Helfi said that case has been settled.

"The company in Tangerang was selling Minyakita above the government’s retail price cap, but it was not involved in production," he clarified.

The third company, a cooperative called Kelompok Terpadu Nusantara, was found to have ceased operations in 2023. However, its name was still printed on Minyakita packaging, raising further suspicions.

Police across Indonesia are conducting further investigations into producers and traders suspected of fraudulent Minyakita sales.

The findings in Depok mark the second factory-scale underfilling case, following another discovery in Bogor earlier this week.

Launched in July 2022, Minyakita was introduced to address Indonesia’s shortage of affordable cooking oil. Then-President Joko Widodo deemed it unacceptable for the world’s largest palm oil producer to struggle with a domestic supply crisis.

Under the Minyakita program, cooking oil producers receive larger crude palm oil (CPO) export quotas in return for supplying Minyakita at subsidized rates. Participating companies are allowed to export 20 percent more CPO than their contribution to Minyakita.