TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The Financial Services Authority's (OJK) Investment Alert Task Force (SWI) said that public losses due to participating in illegal investments reached Rp117 trillion. The figure was taken from reports over the last 10 years.

"People's losses due to illegal investments have reached Rp117 trillion in the last 10 years. This is a crime against the community's economy," the Investment Alert Task Force chief Tongam L. Tobing said in a press conference in Yogyakarta, June 10.

The methods of offering illegal investments are becoming more diverse. From stock trading, forex trading, multi-level marketing (MLM), to investing in money games.

Tongam said there are two factors causing illegal investments to keep existing in Indonesia even though authorities continue curbing it. The first is the fast development of technology that makes it easy for people to create apps.

The second factor, he said, is the fact that a lot of Indonesians still have low literacy about financial products. Many people are easily tempted by the profits offered, which are unreasonably quick and huge.

"Our people is very easily tempted by illogical rewards," he said.

Tongam said that the Investment Alert Task Force continues to intensify efforts to educate and improve people's literacy, by collaborating with stakeholders in the provinces and rural areas.

The best way for people to tell apart legal and illegal investments is by checking for the two L aspects: legal and logical. "[An investment] has to be legally licensed and have its own legal entity. And think logically about the fact it is impossible to generate profits non-stop without working," he said.

Read: OJK: Illegal Fintech, Investment Rampant amid Pandemic

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