This is the second installment of Indonesia for Sale, an in-depth series on the corruption behind Indonesia’s deforestation and land rights crisis.Indonesia for Sale is a collaboration between Mongabay and The Gecko Project, an investigative reporting initiative established by UK-based nonprofit Earthsight.The series is the product of 16 months of reporting across the Southeast Asian country, interviewing fixers, middlemen, lawyers and plantation companies involved in land deals, and those most affected by them. (Baca dalam Bahasa Indonesia.) Prologue: Jakarta, 2013 It was long after the close of business when Indonesia’s highest-ranking judge stepped out of his official residence in Jakarta to greet some guests, one night in October 2013. It had been a busy few months for Akil Mochtar. In his capacity as chief justice of the Constitutional Court, he had been called upon to preside over a flurry of cases brought by candidates who had recently taken part in regional elections. Those who felt they had been cheated out of victory through bribes, vote tampering or any of a number of ruses used to gain an edge in close-fought contests could challenge the result in Akil’s court. Akil was working late because he had a lucrative side job. By day he fulfilled his official role, running one of the nation’s most trusted institutions while presenting the face of an impartial judge. By night he peddled his verdicts, negotiating with litigants who sought to buy his decisions for cash. Akil had become a part of the corrupt system he was supposed to police. Waiting for Akil, sitting on a bench next to the manicured bushes on his terrace, was a businessman with four envelopes underneath his shirt stuffed with a total of $250,000 in U.S. and Singapore currency. He was accompanied by an austere woman wearing a hijab and spectacles, a member of parliament who had brokered the deal about to go down. But as soon as Akil stepped out of his front door, more than a dozen investigators from Indonesia’s anti-corruption agency, the KPK, swarmed around them, arresting all three. Those named as suspects by the KPK are perp-walked from its offices in South Jakarta, commonly through a throng of flashing cameras, wearing a distinctive bright-orange vest. The spectacle of the nation’s top judge as a captive of the agency horrified and electrified Indonesia. A religious leader called for him to be crucified; protesters in the Javanese city of Solo cut the fingers off an effigy of Akil and demanded that he be hung from a national monument. Akil Mochtar By now, 15 years after Indonesia became a democracy, it was common knowledge that money had taken on a corrupt role in deciding elections. Political parties solicited vast sums just to place candidates on the ballot; voters expected to receive cash handouts from serious candidates. The costs ran into the millions of dollars to run for office in cities, districts and provinces, establishing the principle that only those with the wealthiest backers, and the greatest comfort with the dark arts of “money politics,” could hope to prevail. Akil’s arrest showed how this unseemly business had infected the highest court in the land, one established to safeguard the foundations of Indonesia’s democracy. Adjudicating election disputes was only a part of its remit, and it had gained popularity for a series of progressive decisions that had demonstrated its integrity and independence. The KPK discovered Akil had made at least $4 million by allowing candidates from every major region of the country to reverse defeat or uphold victory, perverting both the justice system and democracy in one go. Evidence gathered by the KPK suggested that backroom dealings were routine for both the judge and the politicians who sought to bribe him, as much a part of the cut-and-thrust of an election as a stump speech. While Akil had been the focal point of its investigation, the KPK began working its way through the politicians caught in its net. The first to go down was Hambit Bintih, who had just won a contentious vote to be reelected head, or bupati, of Gunung Mas, a remote district on the island of Borneo. The businessman who had brought the cash to Akil had done so on Hambit’s behalf, to secure his victory in the election. Hambit Bintih Within hours of the sting outside Akil’s house, KPK agents arrested Hambit in a luxury suite on the 17th floor of a Jakarta hotel, bringing his freedom and political career to a end. He was found with the trappings of wealth that sat uneasily with the modest salary of a district official: designer Italian leather bags, stacks of cash, and a bank savings book in the name of Cornelis Nalau Antun, the businessman he had sent to bribe the judge. Under the glare of media attention attracted by his role in Akil’s downfall, some details trickled out about Cornelis. He was reportedly the bupati’s nephew and had served as his campaign finance manager. During the ensuing trial, it emerged that Cornelis had not only delivered the cash to Akil but had also been tasked with sourcing it. After Hambit negotiated the price with the judge, Cornelis had asked two friends from their home province of Central Kalimantan, each described in court as an “entrepreneur,” to lend him the money. Each of the men provided the equivalent of $85,000 in cash. In their testimony, they claimed never to have asked what it was for. The KPK was too busy following the other leads of bribery out from Akil to push the investigation further. In any case, the charges against Hambit were easily proven through a multitude of text messages exposing his negotiations with the judge, while Cornelis had been caught red-handed. The source of the money was attributed to the largesse of two wealthy men willing to help out a friend, no questions asked. Hambit and Cornelis were sentenced to four and three years in prison respectively. Akil was convicted in a separate trial and sent away for life, bringing the episode to a close. But a deeper story remained untold. The Gecko Project and Mongabay picked up the investigation where the prosecutors left off. We traced the source of the money back further, to a series of land deals cut in the 19 months leading up to the election. These deals represented an area more than 10 times the size of Manhattan, inhabited by thousands of indigenous people and encompassing some of the richest rainforest left on Borneo. As Hambit, Cornelis and Akil began serving their sentences, the palm oil firm on the other side of the land deals remained untouched. It is still destroying forest in Gunung Mas today. Our investigation, based on interviews with sources close to the deals, KPK prosecutors, court records and company documents, shows the bribery of Akil Mochtar was neither the beginning nor the end of the malady that afflicted Gunung Mas. It was just a glimpse of a much bigger system, that channels natural resources to private companies and dark money into corrupt elections. The story behind the Gunung Mas land deals reveals how this system functions. It shows how the destruction of Indonesia’s environment and the subversion of its democracy are inextricably connected. As campaigns get underway ahead of elections this June, in 171 constituencies across the nation, the system remains intact. Part 1: ‘It was a political year’