JAKARTA: The founder of once-booming Indonesian aquaculture firm eFishery has been arrested with two of his associates on suspicion of fraud, police said Tuesday (Aug 5).
After selling itself as a disruptive business offering fish and shrimp farmers an online platform for “feed, financing and market”, it fell from grace in late 2024 when former chief executive Gibran Huzaifah was suspended over revenue irregularities.
Gibran and two former executives were named as suspects and recently arrested over allegations they manipulated the company’s books, said Helfi Assegaf, the national police director of special economic crime.
“The three collaborated to carry out fraud and embezzlement on the investment process of eFishery by marking up the investment,” he told reporters Tuesday.
They were accused of inflating the tech unicorn’s revenue and profit to lure investment.
The police official did not say if the three had been formally charged.
Helfi said nearly US$1 million had been embezzled from the firm.
“The initial figure that we can already prove is 15 billion rupiah (US$915,499),” he said.
“It’s still under process. We also are carrying out an audit of financial reports and the use of money.”
In an interview with Bloomberg published in April, Gibran admitted to manipulating eFishery’s financial statements, but denied stealing any money.
The trio have been in custody since Jul 31, according to Indonesian police-run site Tribratanews.
After Gibran’s suspension, the firm laid off most employees and appointed a consulting firm as its new management team this year, according to local media reports.
The company was once valued at US$1.4 billion dollars but an internal probe found it had inflated its accounts and incurred investor losses of hundreds of millions of dollars, Bloomberg reported.
Earlier this year, the startup appointed business advisory firm FTI Consulting as its new management.
eFishery’s investors include Japan’s SoftBank and Singapore’s Temasek.
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/asia/indonesia-startup-efishery-founder-gibran-huzaifah-arrested-5278131
