Jakarta -
Metro Police succeeded in uncovering a criminal case of pornography linked to gambling in the HOT51 application electronic system. The monetization scheme behind this service was revealed.
For your information, a monetization scheme is a way or strategy used by a person, business, or content creator to generate revenue from products, services, or assets they own. In this case, they 'sold' pornography services and then embedded gambling within it.
"Investigation results show the application is suspected of being used for gambling and live streaming with pornographic content," said Metro Police Chief General Asep Edi Suheri in a press conference, Friday (26/6).
Compiled by detikcom, Saturday (27/6/2026), nine individuals and five corporations were designated as suspects in this case.
Nine individuals have been designated as suspects, including WS, BF, RM, OV, XR, and MPN, as well as a foreign national on the wanted list, namely SB.
Meanwhile, the designation of suspects for five corporations is PT HSR, PT PDN, PT MDS, PT CDS, and PT IDI.
Individual suspects are charged under Article 426 of the Criminal Code with threats of 9 years imprisonment and a maximum fine of Rp 2 billion.
Article 407 of the Criminal Code on Pornography Offenses with threats of a minimum of 6 months and a maximum of 10 years imprisonment with a minimum fine of Rp 200 million and a maximum of Rp 2 billion.
Article 607 of the Criminal Code on Money Laundering with threats of a maximum of 15 years imprisonment and a maximum fine of Rp 5 billion.
Meanwhile, five corporations are charged under Article 118 of the Criminal Code and/or Article 119 of the Criminal Code and/or Article 120 of the Criminal Code and/or Article 121 of the Criminal Code and/or Article 122 of the Criminal Code in conjunction with Article 45 of the Criminal Code and/or Article 46 of the Criminal Code and/or Article 47 of the Criminal Code and/or Articles 48 and 49 of the Criminal Code on crimes committed by corporations. With threats of imprisonment under 7 years, maximum penalty for category VI corporations of Rp 2 billion.
Suspects' Modus Operandi
Directorate of Criminal Investigation Kombes Iman Imanuddin explained further about this case. The modus operandi of this pornography crime was carried out through the live streaming feature in the HOT51 application.
Viewers watching the erotic broadcast gave payments in the form of virtual gifts to the female hosts who were performing.
In order to be able to make payments or make deposits to buy those gifts, this syndicate deceived the national banking system by using virtual account channels managed by payment gateway PT PDN, virtual accounts from PT HSR, and company accounts in the name of PT KAJP.
"The financial profits collected from the virtual gift donations of those viewers did not stop within the application. The proceeds from the pornography crime were then converted into cash through the payment service provider corporation (payment gateway) and shell company accounts," explained Kombes Iman.
"The virtual account facility of the payment gateway corporation was deliberately abused so that the dark money from the crime could be collected and concealed," he continued.
"After being converted to cash, continued Kombes Iman, the dark money from the pornography crime was distributed in a structured manner as tiered commissions to the agency network in the field. This commission distribution flow analyzed four levels of agency hierarchy:
OV was arrested in the North Aceh region and served as a master agent. OV was responsible for recruiting hosts, agents, and super agents, managing the salary/commission distribution flow, and being the party that directly received the flow of proceeds from the payment gateway company account.
Fund Circulation Reaching Rp 559 Billion
The fund circulation in this case also reached billions of rupiah. The fund circulation reached Rp 559 billion.
"This syndicate managed dark money with a combined volume of Rp 559,848,693,338," said Kombes Iman.
He said the money circulation was carried out by payment gateway company partners. Among them:
PT IDI managed Rp 161.8 billion
PT MDS managed 68.2 billion
PT CDS managed 26.3 billion.
Next, investigators blocked 118 bank accounts and virtual accounts and seized cash amounting to Rp 14,962,046,000.
"From this scheme clearly illustrating how the flow of criminal funds from the HOT51 application was collected and concealed through the abuse of the virtual account facility of the payment gateway corporation and shell company accounts," he explained.
The dark money was distributed in a structured manner to pay the gambling and pornography agency network.
(/azh)
