Indonesia’s ‘Gasoline Godfather’ Targeted in $18 Billion Graft Probe
Mohammad Riza Chalid is the highest-profile businessman in the crosshairs of an administration eager to supercharge growth in Southeast Asia’s largest economy.
A Pertamina fuel storage facility at Tanjung Priok port in Jakarta in 2022.
Photographer: Dimas Ardian/BloombergA reclusive oil merchant dominated Indonesia’s fuel trade for decades. Now he is embroiled in an $18 billion probe into the country’s state-owned oil producer that has become a litmus test for President Prabowo Subianto’s anticorruption drive.
Mohammad Riza Chalid, who has long maintained high-level political ties, is known in the industry as the “Gasoline Godfather” for his key role in importing billions of dollars of oil products, mostly from neighboring Singapore. His star has been waning — Indonesia wants to rely less on costly overseas purchases of gasoline or diesel — but he is the most audacious target to date for the current administration, as it reshuffles its energy procurement and attempts to supercharge growth in Southeast Asia’s largest economy.