Wowon Erawan, a man of about 60 from Cianjur in West Java, was sentenced to life imprisonment in November 2023 for the January 2023 killing of a woman and her two sons in a rented house in Bantar Gebang, Bekasi. The victims were Ai Maimunah, whom he described as his wife, and her sons Ridwan Abdul Muiz and M Riswandi. The case did not stay in Bekasi. Within days of the deaths, police in Jakarta announced that the household was only the last of at least nine killings linked to Wowon and two associates, and that the group had run a scheme in which people paid money in return for promises that it would be multiplied.
Indonesia's press called the group "Wowon cs" (Wowon and company). Police gave a motive that applied to every death: the people who died were killed because they knew of the fraud or had demanded what they had been promised. Only the three Bekasi deaths were put before a court in the case that reached a verdict. The other six rest on police findings and reported confessions, and no court has ruled on them.
Wowon Erawan was 60 in January 2023. He was known as Aki, and the people who sent him money knew him as Aki Banyu, according to a report by Agence France-Presse printed by Inquirer.net. Liputan6 and detik.com place his home in the Ciranjang area of Cianjur Regency. Police said he had six wives, among them Wiwin, whom Liputan6 described as his legal wife, Halimah and Ai Maimunah. Kumparan quoted the brother of Ai Maimunah as saying that Wowon was known to have many debts, and quoted his fourth wife as saying that he worked in a rice factory. His early life and schooling are not on record.
The second man, Solihin, was known as Duloh. Reports gave his age as 60 or 63. Police described him, in detik.com's account, as a traditional healer who claimed he could multiply money, and the Kumparan summary says he lived about 20 meters from Wowon in Cianjur. The third, M Dede Solehudin, was in his mid-thirties. Kumparan described him as Wowon's younger brother and as playing the same recruiting role as Wowon; detik.com reported that he gathered the money. Police said more than one billion rupiah in transfers had passed through an account in his name.
All three were neighbors or kin, and the people around them were mostly related. The Metro Jaya police director of general crime, Hengki Haryadi, said most of the dead were relatives of the suspects, including wives, in-laws and children.
According to police accounts carried by detik.com, the group raised money by promising to multiply what people gave them. Some women had been sending money since 2019. When they asked for it back, police said, they were killed. The chief of Jakarta's Metro Jaya police, Fadil Imran, said at a news conference on January 19, 2023 that the three suspects had killed to hide a fraud framed as supernatural power, and that the victims were seen as a danger because they knew about it.
Agence France-Presse gave examples of the sums involved. A 42-year-old woman sent about 288 million rupiah, roughly 19,500 dollars, after Wowon promised returns many times larger. Police told AFP the three had planned to kill her after she asked about her investment in late 2022, but she declined to meet them after friends warned her they were swindlers. Another woman, 30, sent more than 100 million rupiah and stopped paying in 2021 when her questions went unanswered. Neither met them.
The killings that reached a court took place in Bantar Gebang, a district of Bekasi on the eastern edge of Jakarta, in a household of five. Kumparan reported that the matter came to police on January 12, 2023. Three people died: Ai Maimunah, 40, and her two sons. The indictment gave the sons' ages as 20 and 16; other reports gave 23 and 17, and an early police account gave 18 and 15. Ai Maimunah's five-year-old daughter, whom she had with Wowon, survived and was placed in the care of a child protection agency.
The house was rented by Wowon. Ai Maimunah was the daughter of Halimah, one of Wowon's earlier wives, and the union was a religious marriage only, Liputan6 reported. Her family disapproved of it, her brother said, partly because Wowon had once been married to her mother.
Police said the family was killed because they had grown aware of the scheme and wanted the promised profits. The indictment placed the killings on January 11, 2023. Dede was at first treated as one of the victims. Police said he had placed himself among them so that he would be taken for one, and he became a suspect.
Liputan6 reported that Wowon and Solihin were arrested in Garut. The exact dates of the arrests are not on record. By January 19 police had named all three, and on January 20 the national police chief, Listyo Sigit, ordered officers to investigate the case to the end, his spokesman Dedi Prasetyo said.
AFP reported in May 2023 that the three had been arrested and had reportedly confessed. At the police news conference, it added, Wowon had apologized to the victims' families. His lawyers later told the court that all three had confessed to investigators and regretted what they did.
Police presented the Bekasi deaths as the end of a longer series. On January 20, 2023, the police spokesman Trunoyudo Wisnu Andiko laid out an order of nine victims, which detik.com and iNews reported. The list changed in detail as the inquiry went on, and it remains the police account, not the finding of a court.
Police named Ai Maimunah and her sons as victims seven, eight and nine. Ahead of them, in the order given, were women and a child of the suspects' families and a woman named Farida and a woman named Siti, who had sent money. Wowon's first wife, Wiwin, and her mother, Noneng, were placed in Cianjur. So was Halimah, whose family had been told she died of an illness, and a two-year-old son of Wowon and Ai Maimunah. Farida was also placed in Cianjur. Police said Siti died in Surabaya on an order from Wowon, with Noneng acting for him, although where she died is disputed. Under the police account, Solihin carried out most of the Cianjur killings on Wowon's instructions.
Kumparan reported that police dated Halimah's death to 2016, making her the first victim, and set the deaths of Siti, the child and Farida between 2020 and 2022. Detik.com listed five of the nine as dying in Cianjur, three in Bekasi and one in Surabaya. Police also said at the time that they feared there were more victims, and Polres Cianjur opened a reporting post for people who had lost relatives or had dealings with the suspects, JPNN reported on January 23, 2023.
Halimah's family had believed she died of illness in 2016. After her niece Ai Maimunah died, her younger brother told Republika, the family grew suspicious and asked the police to look again. He told the paper he wanted the harshest punishment for the suspects, which in his view meant death.
The case that reached a verdict was heard in the Bekasi District Court (Pengadilan Negeri Bekasi) under case number 250/Pid.B/2023/PN Bks. The charge was premeditated murder under Article 340 of the Criminal Code, read with Articles 338 and 339, and the victims named in it were Ai Maimunah, Ridwan Abdul Muiz and M Riswandi. The earlier deaths in Cianjur were not part of that indictment.
At a hearing on August 14, 2023, detik.com reported, the presiding judge questioned Wowon about his motive. Asked why he killed over something as minor as a lack of visits, he answered that it was a lapse. He said he felt no guilt and no regret, and that at the time the act had been ordinary to him. He often stayed silent when pressed. Solihin told the court he alone had carried out the plan and that Dede did not know. The judge rejected this, citing police statements that Dede was aware of it, and Solihin then agreed that Dede had known. The judge rebuked him for lying.
The trial was slow. The prosecutors' demand was put off five times, and the Attorney General's Office summoned the prosecutors handling the case to explain the delay. Its spokesman, Ketut Sumedana, said the case had drawn public and leadership attention and the delays could make the office look unprofessional.
On October 2, 2023, prosecutor Omar Syarif Hidayat asked for the death penalty for all three men. The aggravating factors, detik.com reported, were that they had taken three lives and had disturbed the community. In their favor, the prosecution noted, none had a previous conviction. Afterward Wowon said he wanted to see his family, since it had been a long time, while Solihin and Dede said nothing.
After the demand, the defense lawyer told Medcom she hoped for life imprisonment or twenty years and pointed to the defendants' conduct in court and their age. At the plea stage in mid-October a defense lawyer told iNews that all three had confessed and regretted what they did, that Wowon's age should count, and that Solihin and Dede had acted on Wowon's orders after being drawn in by inducements.
On November 1, 2023, a panel presided over by Judge Suparna sentenced Wowon Erawan, Solihin (Duloh) and M Dede Solehudin each to life imprisonment, detik.com and Republika reported. The court found premeditated murder under Article 340 of the Criminal Code, read with Article 55(1). All three were ordered to remain in detention, and prosecution and defense were given seven days to say whether they would appeal.
The sentence was lower than the prosecutors had asked. The charges covered only the three Bekasi deaths. Republika added that Wowon was said to have directed the killing of nine people in Bekasi and Cianjur, a claim that was not tested in this trial.
The Bekasi prosecutors appealed, arguing that life imprisonment did not match the community's sense of justice and asking for death. The Bandung High Court ruled on December 20, 2023, a panel led by Judge Kristwan G Damanik with Edison Muhammad and Mulyanto. It accepted the appeal as filed but rejected the claim, and the life sentences stood. The judges said the first-instance ruling rested on the facts shown at trial and that punishment was meant to educate and deter, not to take revenge. Detik.com reported the decision on December 22 and again on December 24, 2023. Whether a further appeal to the Supreme Court was lodged is not on record.
As of December 24, 2023, the life sentences stood upheld on appeal and the three men were in detention. A Supreme Court ruling, a retrial or a separate trial on the Cianjur deaths is not on record.
The nine-victim count is the police figure, and reports at the time disagreed on who was on the list, on whether some victims were relatives or were people who had paid money, and on dates. AFP named a woman, Siti Fatimah, whose death police blamed on the group, and where the woman named Siti died is disputed. The ages of the two sons also differ across reports.
The Cianjur deaths are not convictions. Police attributed them, the men were reported as confessing, and no verdict on them is on record.
2016: Police later date Halimah's death to this year, the first in their list of nine (Kumparan).
2019: Some women begin sending money to the group (detik.com).
2020 to 2022: Police date the deaths of Siti, a two-year-old child and Farida to these years (Kumparan).
Late 2022: Police say the group planned to kill a woman who asked about her investment; she did not meet them (AFP).
January 11, 2023: The date of the Bekasi killings in the indictment.
January 12, 2023: The Bekasi case comes to police.
January 19, 2023: Police name Wowon Erawan, Solihin and M Dede Solehudin.
January 20, 2023: Police list nine victims and the national police chief orders a full investigation.
August 14, 2023: A trial hearing at which Wowon says he felt no guilt.
October 2, 2023: Prosecutors ask for death.
November 1, 2023: Life sentences for all three.
December 20, 2023: The Bandung High Court rejects the prosecution appeal; the life sentences stand.