A police raid on the home of Febrie Adriansyah, Indonesia's deputy attorney general for special crimes, uncovered about $20 million in cash and 74 kilograms (163 pounds) of gold. Adriansyah, the country's top prosecutor in the fight against corruption, acknowledged that he owned the house but denied any connection to the items seized.
Military units aligned with Adriansyah's office arrived at police headquarters late that night following the raid, but eventually left without a confrontation. President Prabowo Subianto recognized the emerging crisis between the two law-enforcement bodies and summoned the parties involved for talks that same afternoon.
A compromise was reached: Adriansyah would step down as deputy attorney general but would be investigated by the Attorney General's Office rather than by the police.
The incident comes against the backdrop of a long history of rivalry and conflict between Indonesia's military and police since the fall of dictator Suharto in 1998. During Suharto's authoritarian rule from 1966 to 1998, the military controlled the police and derisively referred to the force as its "little brother." As part of the democratic reforms introduced after Suharto's fall, the police gained independence and emerged as a rival security force.
The two organizations have since competed, sometimes violently, over revenue from illegal businesses that both are involved in operating. Each side has allies within the government. The Attorney General's Office is aligned with the military rather than the police. However, the military and police have rarely pursued each other's senior leaders.
