Police names one suspect in subsidized oil MinyaKita quantity fraud

Jakarta (ANTARA) - Directorate of Special Economic Crimes of the National Police Criminal Investigation Unit has named one suspect in the MinyaKita case, where the subsidized cooking oil failed to meet the government's required volume standards.

"Investigators have named one suspect with the initial AWI," Director of Special Economic Crimes and Head of the National Police Food Task Force Brigadier General Helfi Assegaf stated on Tuesday.

Assegaf noted that AWI, the branch head and manager of PT AYA Rasa Nabati, is in charge of packaging and selling several brands of packaged cooking oil, including MinyaKita.

The arrest was made on March 8 following an inspection at Lenteng Agung Market, South Jakarta, which found that the company's oil did not match the measurements.

The following day, investigators visited PT AYA Rasa Nabati in Depok, West Java, where they found oil packaging machines calibrated to dispense 802 milliliters and 760 milliliters.

"He manually set the amount of oil in one package," Assegaf explained.

He noted that AWI has been operating since February 2025, with a production capacity of 400-800 cartons of cooking oil daily.

The police said AWI sourced bulk cooking oil raw materials from PT ISJ via a trader in the Bekasi area for Rp18,100 per kilogram (US$1,08).

Additionally, AWI acquired bottle and pouch packaging from PT MGS in Bekasi City, West Java, costing Rp930 (US$0.06) per bottle and Rp680 (US$0.04) per pouch.

From this disclosure, investigators confiscated several pieces of evidence, including 450 boxes containing MinyaKita in pouch packaging from trucks ready for distribution, 30 pouch-filling machines, and 40 bottle-filling machines, as well as 80 oil storage drums with a capacity of 1,000 liters each.

"For this criminal act, investigators have confiscated evidence of 10,560 liters of cooking oil," Assegaf remarked.

Earlier, at the aforementioned market, the authorities discovered that MinyaKita cooking oil, labeled as one liter, actually contained only between 750 and 800 milliliters.

Besides the issue with the quantity, the selling price exceeded the government-set highest retail price (HET). Although the packaging indicated a price of Rp15,700 (US$0.95) per liter, the oil was sold for Rp18,000 per liter.