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A Romanian convicted in absentia for defrauding more than 100,000 people in his country in a massive Ponzi scheme has been detained in Jakarta and will be deported home, the National Police said on Sunday.

Brig. Gen. Radja Erisman, head of the economic crimes division at National Police headquarters, confirmed that police had contacted the Romanian Embassy and “notified them that we are working toward sending [Nicolae] Popa back to Romania.”

He said they were awaiting further information from the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights before proceeding, adding that Popa was currently being detained at National Police headquarters in South Jakarta.

“Popa has not committed a crime in Indonesia. He was visiting Jakarta as a tourist. We arrested him because of the warrant issued by Interpol at the request of the Romanian Police,” Radja told the Jakarta Globe.

Popa was arrested on Dec. 3, a fact not reported in the Indonesian media. His arrest, however, has been widely reported in Romania since early this month.

Indonesia does not have an extradition treaty with Romania. The 1979 Extradition Law states that the requesting country must make an official extradition request to the Justice Ministry through diplomatic channels, and if no extradition treaty exists between Indonesia and the requesting country, the president can decide on the matter.

Radja said the National Police were waiting for the Ministry of Justice to confer with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.
Popa, according to the Romanian Times newspaper, was sentenced to 15 years in prison by a Bucharest court on charges of fraud in 2006.

A former manager at Romanian financial group Gelsor, Popa was sentenced along with Ioana Maria Vlas over the collapse of the fraudulent National Investment Fund (FNI) in 2000.

More than 100,000 people lost money they had invested in FNI, and the Romanian state, which had guaranteed their investments, was forced to pay out compensation of more than 100 million euros ($144 million).

In a separate extradition case involving a foreigner in Indonesia, New Zealand citizen Robert James McNeice, 43, who was arrested in Aceh in August 2008, has yet to be extradited to Australia to face fraud charges, despite an official request made by the Australian Police, his Indonesian spokesman, Multatuli, told the Globe on Sunday.

An Indonesian court ruled in July that McNeice was eligible for extradition but this is subject to Yudhoyono’s approval. Julian Aldrin Pasha, a presidential spokesman, said Yudhoyono had not yet been briefed on the Popa and McNeice cases.