OJK Freezes 2,591 Illegal Mafia-backed Fintech Platforms

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The Financial Services Authority (OJK) has officially blocked 2,591 illegal fintech lending platforms from 2018 to 2020, which are believed to be backed by international organized crime groups or mafias. 

“The illegal fintech lending platforms the OJK investment alert task force has dropped in 2020 amount to 694. So, in total from 2018, the task force has managed to stop the operations of 2,591 illegal fintech firms,” said the chief of the OJK investment alert task force, Tongam L. Tobing, in an online discussion on Monday. 

Tongam explained that OJK’s suspicion is based on the servers where the multiple fintech firms were based. 

“These illegal fintech activities, we think are backed by international mafia groups such as the Russian mafia, Indian mafia, and other organized criminal groups that seek major profits from the public,” said L. Tobing. 

He believed the fintech activities conducted by these groups were only bridging between the lenders and the borrowers. Tobing also suspected these “mafia groups” were not involved in raising funds from lenders nor channelling the funds from the illegal fintech companies. 

“Illegal fintech lending activities tend to be in the form of electronic funding considering that no lenders have reported to the OJK but many victims, or borrowers, have reported their experiences to the OJK,” said the OJK task force head. 

Read: SWI Reveals 388 Illegal Lending Fintech Entities

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