Friderica Widyasari Dewi, head of market conduct supervision, education and consumer protection at the Financial Services Authority (OJK), said so-called love, relationship or romance scams were increasingly targeting victims across borders.
“The trend is clearly global, and it has also been proven in Indonesia,” she told a press conference on the Financial Services Sector Assessment and OJK policy outcomes from the December 2025 monthly board meeting in Jakarta on Friday.
She was referring to a recent case in Yogyakarta, where police uncovered a suspected international romance scam syndicate operating in Sleman District, Special Region of Yogyakarta.
The scheme was exposed following a sting operation at the office of PT Altair Trans Service on Gito Gati Street in Ngaglik Sub-district on Monday, Jan. 5, at around 1:00 pm local time.
Investigators said the operation relied on an online dating application cloned from a China-based app known as WOW.
Employees at the company were hired as chat administrators and instructed to pose as women, tailoring their identities to match the nationality of targeted users.
They lured users into purchasing virtual coins or topping up balances to send in-app “gifts”.
Once users sent gifts, the scammers gradually delivered content in the form of photos and videos containing pornographic material.
The victims were foreign nationals from several countries, including the United States, Britain, Canada and Australia.
“These scammers target victims in many countries through the internet and applications, making this a very high cross-border risk,” Friderica, who is widely known as Kiki, said.
She explained that victims were emotionally manipulated into believing they were in genuine relationships, leading them to voluntarily transfer large sums of money.
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“Because they feel they have a special relationship with the other person, the financial losses can be enormous,” she added.
Beyond financial damage, victims often suffer serious psychological harm due to emotional manipulation that can be difficult to heal.
Friderica said the Task Force for Combating Illegal Financial Activities (Satgas PASTI) continues to urge the public to remain alert to evolving scam methods, including romance scams.
The task force disseminates anti-scam messages through social media, mass media, public transport, podcasts, banking channels such as ATMs and mobile banking applications, and other platforms.
By the end of 2025, the Indonesia Anti-Scam Center had received 3,494 reports linked to romance scams, with total losses reaching 49.19 billion rupiah ($3.2 million).
OJK has called on the public to remain vigilant and cautious against all forms of manipulative schemes, particularly romance-based scams.
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Translator: M Baqir Idrus A, Resinta Sulistiyandari
Editor: Rahmad Nasution
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