When Cash Transactions Will Be Restricted

Walter White is a high school chemistry teacher in Albuquerque, New Mexico. But the teacher who travels the teacher as usual. In addition to teaching chemistry, he turned out to produce and sell illicit goods, namely methamphetamine crystals.

By selling methamphetamine crystals or commonly referred to as meth, Walter's income jumped. Unfortunately, the sudden increase in income is not and can be used immediately because of the government's suspicion.

He began to seek the source of his illegal business to be disguised. One way is to wash the car. Any proceeds from the drug business, Walter will mix into car wash payments, money earned as if from car wash services.

Illustration like this, currently earn revenue from illegal business of Rp12 million every month, or Rp400.000 per day. On the other hand, car wash business generates revenues of Rp1 million per day from every 100 cars that buy.

Well, for money from illegal business, in bookkeeping, car wash income recorded at Rp1, 4 million per day. So, Walter added 40 cars / fictitious customers in the bookkeeping.

Walter White is a fictional character that is in the series film titled 'Breaking Bad'. The US series, which debuted in 2008, provides information on illegal drugs, including money laundering or money laundering.

Money laundering is an act of concealing or disguising the origin of money or money for the results of various financial transactions to appear as if they were from legal activities.

Money laundering crime belongs to white-collar crime (white colar crime) for entering into invisible crime, difficult to detect and its implementation is very complex.
One of the cases of money laundering that is enough attention in Indonesia is the case of Muhammad Nazaruddin. The former MP was sentenced to six years in prison in June 2016 for corruption and money laundering around Rp600 billion in 2010-2014.

The practice of money laundering is very difficult to detect and complex, so special agents must handle it. In Indonesia, the agency dealing with money laundering is the Center for Financial Transaction Reporting and Analysis (PPATK). He has the authority to implement policies to prevent and combat money laundering, as well as to build anti-money laundering regimes, and counter terrorism financing in Indonesia.

The PPATK formed in April 2002 has made various efforts to minimize money laundering crimes, such as issuing the principle of recognizing service users (PMPJ).

The principle of identifying a service user is a principle applied by the reporting party to know the background and identity of the service user, monitoring transactions, and reporting transactions to the authorized authority / INTRAC.

However, the provisions of the guidelines for complainants, especially in submitting financial transaction reports to PPATK, such as suspicious transactions, cash transactions, and transfer of funds transfer from and to other countries.

The reporting party requested by the PPATK to report the transaction is a financial service provider (PJK) such as a bank, and other goods and / or service providers (PBJ). For PJB, the reported transaction is a transaction of minimal service users / over Rp500 million.

Provision to report by PBJ or CHD with minimum limit of transaction is only one effort to contain money laundering crime, PPATK still not satisfied. This time, PPATK proposes a new strategy to the government for currency or cash transactions limited to Rp100 million.

Things that make cash transactions need to be limited include strong cash transactions. According to PPATK, criminal acts committed with cash are difficult to trace. Even the KPK proposes that the cash transaction limit is only up to Rp25 million. This proposal appears related to the discussion of the Bill on the restrictions on currency transactions rolling in the DPR. There are currently no provisions governing the restrictions on cash transactions.

"Usually [limited] above Rp500 million is less secure, making transaction tracking difficult, it is not in line with the objectives of Less Cash Society," said Head of PPATK Kiagus Ahmad Badaruddin to Tirto.
Kiagus is optimistic that the restrictions can minimize money laundering, since countries such as Italy, Mexico, Brazil, Belgium and Armenia succeeded in suppressing money laundering with minimal cash transaction restrictions.

So how far the government's efforts in preventing the crime of money laundering, terrorism funding in Indonesia this?

According to global research firm KnowYourCountry, the level of risk of money laundering crimes in Indonesia as of May 1, 2018 is at the middle level or at the number 62.64. Of 219 countries monitored, Indonesia ranked 131.
KnowYourCountry divides the risk level of money laundering crime into five levels, ie high risk with score <50, high middle 50-60, medium 60-70, low middle 70-80 and low 80-100.

In its research results, Indonesia has made progress in identifying and dealing with the vulnerability of money laundering crimes. This is also inseparable from the government's efforts in issuing regulations based on risk approach.

However, Indonesia remains vulnerable to money laundering. Most money laundering crimes in Indonesia are related to drug trafficking and other criminal activities such as corruption, tax crime, bank fraud and others.

"The most vulnerable is the imbalance between financial system regulation and legislation, a cash-based economy, weak rule of law to less effective law enforcement agencies," said KnowYourCountry research.

According to KnowYourCountry research, the level of risk of Indonesian money laundering at ASEAN level is quite good, although it is still inferior to Malaysia which has a score of 65.15 and Singapore which has a score of 78.69.
Anti-money laundering and terrorist financing (APUPPT) research was also conducted by PPATK. According to the research, the level of performance effectiveness of APUPPT Indonesia regime in 2017 is considered good enough by the public.

The assessment is reflected from the public perception index value of APUPPT of 5.31 from the perfect figure of 10. The achievement also improved compared to the value of the public perception index of APUPPT in 2016 of 5.21.

The index is based on survey results from 11,040 households spread over 1,104 villages in 34 provinces. From each household selected one person with age above 17 years as respondent.

infografik jurus ppatk

Disrupt the Business Climate

On the other hand, PPATK's proposal to limit the maximum currency transaction of Rp100 million has the potential to negatively affect the stretching of the business world, especially business actors in the region.

"In our opinion, the plan will cause many problems. Counterproductive. In addition to infrastructure in the area is still minimal, the culture of using cash is also still thick, "said Chairman of Apindo Hariyadi Sukamdani to Tirto.

For that, he advised the government to be able to prepare everything first before realizing the restrictions on cash transactions. In addition, the government is also encouraged to make an academic study to assess the readiness of business actors in the region.
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