Kominfo: Influencers Promoting Illegal Trading Sites May Face Criminal Charges

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Director-General of Informatics Applications at the Ministry of Communications and Informations (Kominfo) Semuel Abrijani Pengerapan said influencers or public figures advertising illegal futures trading sites and online gambling hiding behind trading could also be charged with the articles on fraud. Apart from promoting, influencers were usually partnered with fraudulent investment trading platforms as affiliates.

“If the platform is closed and he (the influencer) is still making promotion, he can be punished. If a celebrity promotes it, they can also be involved [in the criminal case],” said Semuel in an interview with Tempo on Thursday, February 3.

Illegal futures trading and online gambling behind trading methods have become the public limelight again as many influencers popularized them on social media. One of the trading instruments that were in the spotlight these days was binary options.

A number of people claimed to be victims of these fraudulent investments. Dozens of binary options trading victims even planned to file a report to the National Police’s Criminal Investigation Unit for being cheated by one of the applications.

Semuel explained that the trend of illegal futures trading sites continued to emerge over the years. Since 2016, Kominfo had received 1,130 complaints of investment scams. In the last two years during the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of reports has skyrocketed.

Read: Philippines Studies Economic Impact of Halting Online Gambling

FRANCISCA CHRISTY ROSANA