Jakarta Airport Immigration Bribe Scandal Leads To Dozens Of Firings

Here’s a practice that’s way too common, as flagged by View from the Wing. It’s nice to see people being held accountable, even if action was only taken due to public pressure resulting from a leak.

Indonesia fires 30 immigration officers over bribes

Indonesia has just fired 30 immigration officers working at Jakarta Soekarno–Hatta International Airport (CGK), following accusations that they demanded bribes from Chinese travelers. This scandal came to light when the Chinese Embassy in Jakarta sent a letter to the Indonesian government, highlighting the accusations. In part, the letter read as follows:

Last year, with the help of the Consulate Department of the esteemed Ministry, the Chinese Embassy has maintained close contact and coordination with the Immigration Office of the Jakarta International Airport and solved at least 44 cases of extortion, with a total sum of around Rp 32,750,000 returned to more than 60 Chinese nationals.

Attached is a list of extortion cases between February 2024 and January 2025. It is just a tip of the iceberg since many more Chinese nationals who were extorted did not file complaints due to tight schedule or fear of reprisals upon future entries.

With a view to eradicating the extortion problem at the airport, the Embassy hopes that signs of “No tips,” “Please report if there is extortion” in Chinese, Indonesian and English could be put up at immigration checkpoints and orders of no tips could be issued to Chinese travel agencies so that they will not advise Chinese travelers to bribe the immigration officers.

As you can see, there were at least 44 formal complaints, and the total amount extorted was roughly $2,000, and that was paid back. I can only imagine how many travelers ended up being extorted without reporting it.

The government ended up taking action when the letter from the Chinese Embassy was leaked to the public, given the public embarrassment it caused. Even the airport’s Head of the Intelligence and Immigration Enforcement was fired, and was found to be involved in the scandal.

It’s awful how this level of corruption is tolerated

Like many countries, Indonesia has been trying to grow its tourism sector, so it’s really disappointing to see how common this kind of a problem is. You’re always going to have some bad apples who don’t follow policies, but this was incredibly widespread, so there was a culture whereby this was normalized.

Of course it’s worth acknowledging that Indonesia is hardly alone with having these kinds of issues, and you have a countless number of countries that also have issues with government officials at airports (and elsewhere) accepting bribes (but not Egypt — that just doesn’t happen there, and Cairo Airport is perfect).