Indonesians baffled by suspicious 2 trillion rupiah ‘donation’
- The curious case of the dead businessman, an infamous styrofoam board and a never materialising offer of aid to a community hit by Covid-19 has gripped the nation
- Public excitement that greeted news of the donation has turned to anger, some of which has been directed towards minorities due to the Chinese ethnicity of some of those involved
The strange sequence of events began on July 23, when the South Sumatra police chief, Inspector General Eko Indra Heri, was contacted by Professor Hardi Darmawan by telephone.
Darmawan, the director of Charitas Hospital in Palembang, had previously served as the personal doctor of Akidi Tio, a mysterious Indonesian businessman and philanthropist, for 48 years before Tio’s death in 2009.
According to Darmawan, Tio’s children, and in particular his daughter Heryanty Tio, had asked him to work as an intermediary as the family wished to donate 2 trillion rupiah in aid money to the city of Palembang to be distributed to the community.
In the days that followed, Heryanty’s husband, Rudi Sutadi told the media that, “the money was part of his [Akidi Tio’s] will. If we don’t use it then we, the children, will suffer from karma.”