Government’s Strategic Move to Block Inactive Accounts Succeeds in Reducing Online Gambling Transactions
By: Hamzah Kurniawan
The fight against online gambling in Indonesia continues to show significant progress. Through cooperation with various stakeholders, the government has succeeded in reducing online gambling transactions via a strategic measure — blocking inactive or dormant bank accounts. This strategy not only targets suspicious transactions directly but also cuts off financial channels often used by perpetrators to disguise illicit funds.
According to OJK (Financial Services Authority) reports, at least 25,912 accounts have been blocked due to indications of involvement in online gambling activities. This data reflects the seriousness of financial institutions in responding to increasingly sophisticated digital crime threats. The blocking action was based on information provided by the Ministry of Communication and Digital Affairs (Komdigi) and followed up professionally by applying Enhanced Due Diligence (EDD) to ensure that suspicious transactions can be traced more thoroughly and systematically.
OJK’s Chief Executive of Banking Supervision, Dian Ediana Rae, explained that this approach is part of broader enforcement measures against illegal financial transactions, including the widespread online gambling activity. In addition to blocking accounts, OJK has instructed all banking institutions to be more vigilant over dormant accounts. Unmonitored inactive accounts can be easily exploited in money laundering schemes or other financial crimes, such as the buying and selling of accounts — a practice that has become rampant in the digital black market.
The blocking measure taken by OJK demonstrates the effectiveness of data-driven policy and digital oversight. In less than a month, the number of blocked accounts rose by nearly 9,000, reflecting a rapid and coordinated inter-agency response in tackling the abuse of the national financial system by cybercrime syndicates. The misuse of dormant accounts has long been a significant loophole in the system, often used to obscure the trail of funds from online gambling.
PPATK (Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Center) Head, Ivan Yustiavandana, stressed that blocking dormant accounts has had a tangible impact on reducing online gambling transactions. Based on PPATK’s analysis, most perpetrators use inactive accounts to disguise the flow of illegal funds. Dormant accounts are considered a weak point in the banking system, often lacking updated customer data, making them vulnerable to exploitation by irresponsible parties, including online gambling operators and organized crime networks.
Ivan further revealed that out of approximately one million accounts suspected of involvement in money laundering crimes, 150,000 were categorized as dormant. This is a substantial figure, showing that oversight of passive accounts must be tightened as an early prevention measure against digital crimes. PPATK’s success in identifying and blocking these accounts has disrupted online gambling networks that rely on undetected transactions.
PPATK’s Substantive Public Relations Coordinator, M. Natsir Kongah, added that most dormant accounts lack valid and updated customer data. This means that many of these accounts may have originated from illegal activities such as banking data trafficking, system hacking, or unlawful account takeovers. After being used to hold illicit funds, the accounts are left inactive to avoid attracting the attention of monitoring systems. These accounts have become the primary target of PPATK’s blocking measures.
Halting transactions in dormant accounts is not merely aimed at blocking illegal fund flows, but also at encouraging banks and customers to re-verify account ownership. PPATK urges banks not only to deactivate accounts but also to conduct thorough data checks before deciding to reactivate them. This ensures that only legitimate and verified accounts can be used again for financial transactions.
Inter-agency coordination in this policy reflects a new direction in digital law enforcement. The government is no longer focusing solely on direct offenders but also on dismantling the infrastructure that supports crime, such as networks of “black accounts.” This sends a clear message to online gambling operators that their space to operate is shrinking — not only on the surface but deep within the financial system they once considered safe.
This success also highlights that strengthening regulations and technology can be the key to combating digital crime. The use of big data, transaction analysis systems, and inter-agency connectivity has brought significant change to enforcement patterns. The government has demonstrated that with intent and well-measured strategies, online crime is not impossible to combat.
Moreover, this move has brought a positive domino effect to the financial sector as a whole. By closing loopholes in the misuse of dormant accounts, Indonesia’s banking system becomes cleaner, more transparent, and more resistant to the infiltration of illicit funds. Public trust in the financial system has also increased, indirectly strengthening long-term national economic stability.
However, this success must be maintained and improved. Monitoring of suspicious transactions must be carried out continuously, and banking systems need to develop more precise early detection algorithms. Public participation is equally important, especially in protecting personal data and avoiding the buying and selling of bank accounts, which has recently become increasingly common online.
The writer is a Public Policy Analyst at the Nusantara Damai Institute.
