JAKARTA. The National Police has said that it is stopping its program of sharing information on cyber crime investigations with the Australian Federal Police (AFP).

The National Police’s special economics crime director, Brig. Gen. Arief Sulistyanto, says that the force has complied with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s order to suspend information-sharing and intelligence cooperation with Australia.

Yudhoyono was angered by revelations that Australian spies had attempted to tap his cell phone conversations with his inner circle in 2009.

 “We have followed the instruction because the cooperation between the National Police and the AFP is based on government-to-government cooperation,” Arief said on Sunday.

In the past three years, the AFP has provided substantial assistance for the development of cyber-crime investigations at the National Police.

Back in 2011, the AFP and National Police jointly launched the Cyber Crime Investigation Center (CCIC) at the National Police headquarters in South Jakarta. The Australian government provided communications technology equipment and human resource training for the center.

In the following years, the AFP assisted the National Police to set up Cyber Crime Investigations Satellite Offices (CCISO) at regional police headquarters in Jakarta, North Sumatera, Bali and West Nusa Tenggara. Australia has earmarked A$9 million (US$8.24 million) in total for the cyber crime projects.

The modern equipment at the centers has allowed the National Police to handle more cyber crime cases, such as credit card fraud, scams, online shopping fraud as well as terrorist funding.

Last year, the police revealed that an alleged terrorist, Rizki Gunawan, had hacked several websites and stole around Rp 5.9 billion (US$504,488). A fraction of the money was used to finance the 2011 church bombing in Surakarta, Central Java.

Separately, chairman of the Indonesian Police Watch (IPW) Neta S. Pane called on the National Police to temporarily close the cyber crime center so that it could not be used by Australia to spy on Indonesia.

 “We suspect that Australia’s spying operations utilizes equipment that the country gave Indonesia,” he said on Sunday.

Jakarta Police cyber crime unit head Adj. Sr. Comr. Audie Latuheru said in April that computer servers in his office would be linked to regional police stations, the National Police headquarters and the AFP — allowing them to exchange information.

National Police’s special economics crime director Arief, however, denied that such a connection existed, saying that most of the center’s operations were conducted offline.

“When examining evidence, we use software and hardware without any connections. Internet usage is only allowed for cyber surveillance and investigations,” he said.

 “[The centers] are connected to regional police offices but the network is relatively poor given the bad internet connection. We are not connected the AFP.”

National Police chief Gen. Sutarman declined to discuss the issue, saying only that “he has halted cooperation on people-smuggling, while cooperation on education remains”.

Separately, National Police spokesperson Insp. Gen. Ronny. F. Sompie said that the force would investigate whether communications devices used by the Densus 88 counterterrorism unit had been compromised by foreign spies.

 “We will evaluate all communications devices — the ones purchased by us or foreign countries — that help the investigations of the police, including the Densus 88 counterterrorism unit,” he said on Thursday.

 “I need to ask [Densus 88 chief Sr. Comr. M. Syafei] on the possibility that Densus 88’s data had been tapped and misused for the benefit of other countries, including Australia.” (Yuliasri Perdani/The Jakarta Post)

Editor: Asnil Amri