Report: Equanimity crew questioned over possible immigration violation

PETALING JAYA: Indonesian police are looking into whether the crew of the luxury yacht, seized earlier this week in Bali, had violated immigration procedures to enter Indonesian waters, the Jakarta Post reported.

The yacht, Equanimity was seized when it was berthed at Benoa Bay in the popular tourist destination.

According to deputy di­rec­tor for fi­nan­cial crimes at the Na­tional Po­lice’s de­tective unit, Daniel Tahi Mo­nang Sili­tonga, police are in the process of match­ing the data obtained from the yacht with the data provided by the FBI.

“Investigators had also questioned of­fi­cers from the im­mi­gra­tion of­fice and the Benoa har­bour au­thor­ity,” the police told the daily, adding that the purpose of the vessel’s trip to Bali was also being investigated.

Reuters had reported on Thursday that police seized the yacht after receiving a letter on Feb 21 from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) requesting help to enforce a court order.

Acccord­ing to the po­lice, the yacht en­tered Bali’s Benoa Bay on Nov 20 last year, but its move­ments af­ter ar­riv­ing is not known.

Meanwhile, Indonesian news portal tri­bun­news.com reported police as saying that the South African captain of the yacht had de­lib­er­ately turned off the au­to­mated iden­ti­fi­ca­tion sys­tem (AIS) dur­ing its voy­age in In­done­sian wa­ters to avoid “pur­suit by the FBI”.

Captain Rolf Sieboldt-Berry’s Indonesian lawyer Rando Purba has however, denied any wrongdoing on the part of the crew over the yacht’s presence in Bali.

“The cap­tain had to turn off the AIS to avoid the po­ten­tial of threats in the An­daman Sea be­fore en­ter­ing Phuket in Thai­land. From Phuket, the yacht con­tin­ued its trip to Bali with the AIS turned on.

“The crew re­ceived warn­ing from lo­cal au­thor­i­ties on the way from Colombo to Phuket that they were in a piracy-prone zone. They sent the warn­ing to all yachts cross­ing the An­daman Sea, not only to this yacht,” Purba told Jakarta Post.

Purba also admitted to the Equa­nim­ity having ar­rived in In­done­sia on Nov 20 last year, and trav­elled to sev­eral spots in the ar­chi­pel­ago to en­ter­tain guests.

The Cay­man Is­land-reg­is­tered yacht was re­ported to have trav­elled to at least five tourist spots in In­done­sia, in­clud­ing Raja Am­pat in West Pa­pua and the Maluku Is­lands.

“The guests stayed in re­sorts where the yacht stopped. They had no guests stay­ing on the yacht dur­ing the po­lice raid,” Purba was quoted as saying by Jakarta Post.

According to the daily, a to­tal of 29 crew mem­bers of var­i­ous na­tion­al­i­ties are now un­der po­lice cus­tody on board the ves­sel.

On Wednesday, Indonesia said it had seized the luxury yacht, which was moored at Benoa Bay on the popular tourist destination.

The vessel was sought by the US Department of Justice (DOJ) as part of a multi-billion dollar corruption investigation linked to Malaysian state fund 1MDB.

1MDB is at the centre of money-laundering probes in at least six countries, including the United States, Switzerland and Singapore.

A total of US$4.5 billion (RM17.6 billion) was misappropriated from 1MDB by high-level officials of the fund and their associates, according to civil lawsuits filed by the DOJ in 2016 and 2017.

Prime Minister Najib Razak set up 1MDB in 2009 and previously served as chairman of its advisory board. He and the fund have denied any wrongdoing.

In August 2017, the DOJ asked for a stay on its civil lawsuits seeking to seize more than US$1.7 billion in assets allegedly bought with stolen 1MDB funds because it was conducting a related criminal probe.

Among the assets sought were a US$250 million luxury yacht bought by Jho Low, who is named as a key figure in the US lawsuits.

The lawsuits said Low used proceeds diverted from 1MDB to procure Equanimity, which it described as a 300-foot (91-metre) yacht registered in the Cayman Islands. -FMT