Overview

In recent years, many land-rights cases involving officials and public figures have arisen across Indonesia. There was, for example, the case of the forged land certificates belonging to the mother of the former Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dino Patti Djalal.[1]

In this case, the Indonesian police finally arrested 15 members of the so-called, “land mafia,” syndicate who acted in several roles, including as landowner figures, the staff of land deed officials (pejabat pembuat akta tanah – “PPAT”) and other parties in order to unlawfully transfer titles relating to said land certificates from the legitimate owner of the relevant land rights.[2]