Indonesia police detain former eFishery CEO who faked data, two others
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A farm in West Java, Indonesia, with fish-feeding equipment from eFishery. The start-up claimed revenues of US$752 million in the first nine months of 2024, while the true number was just US$157 million.
PHOTO: BLOOMBERG
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JAKARTA – Indonesian police have detained the co-founder of eFishery Pte, investigating a start-up whose collapse shook up South-east Asia’s investment and tech community.
Mr Gibran Huzaifah was detained last week by the white-collar crimes division, the police said.
He and two other former eFishery executives have remained in custody since July 31, according to a text message from Brigadier-General Helfi Assegaf, director of special economic crimes at the National Police’s Criminal Investigation Agency.
The three have been “officially named as suspects”, according to the police, though it was unclear if any of them have been officially charged with wrongdoing.
Mr Gibran’s detention comes months after he gave Bloomberg News a detailed account of how he inflated revenue
Its ultimate collapse dealt a blow to several of the world’s highest-profile investors, from Japan’s SoftBank Group and Singapore’s Temasek to Peak XV (formerly Sequoia India) and Abu Dhabi’s 42XFund.
The company, which deployed feeders to fish and shrimp farmers in Indonesia, incurred several hundred million dollars in losses between 2018 and 2024, Bloomberg News has reported.
It began unravelling after a board investigation revealed that the start-up may have inflated its revenue and profit over several years.
eFishery, which was valued at US$1.4 billion after a 2023 funding round, had been one of the highest-profile start-ups to emerge from Indonesia.
By the time it collapsed, the scheme had blown up into a multinational web of shell companies and padded accounts.
The company claimed revenues of US$752 million in the first nine months of 2024, while the true number was just US$157 million, according to an internal investigation.
As of April, at least US$300 million of investors’ money has been lost.
Investors are still debating how to wrap the company up.
The board has hired FTI Consulting in Singapore to review the business and take over its management.
In a presentation to investors seen by Bloomberg News, it concluded that “eFishery is not commercially viable in its current form”.
FTI has recommended the business be wound down and what money is left returned to investors.
Representatives of FTI declined to comment on Aug 5.
Police have not divulged details of the detentions, which were first reported by DealStreetAsia.
Apart from Mr Gibran, police detained and named two other suspects in the probe, Mr Angga Hadrian Raditya and Mr Andri Yadi.
Both are former vice-presidents and had been interviewed by internal investigators.
Mr Andri previously co-founded DycodeX, which eFishery acquired in 2024 to propel a foray into artificial intelligence. Bloomberg
