Surabaya — East Java's High Prosecutor's Office named former president director of Surabaya Zoo's operator a corruption suspect on Tuesday, accusing him of marking up animal feed budgets over eight years and causing an estimated 10.2 billion rupiah ($625,000) in state losses that left animals malnourished and, in some cases, dead.
Choirul Anwar, who led the Surabaya Zoo Animal Park Regional Company (PD TS KBS) from 2016 to 2024, was named a suspect and detained for 20 days at the Class I Surabaya Detention Center, a branch of the East Java High Prosecutor's Office.
Assistant for Special Crimes at East Java's High Court Prosecutor's Office I Gede Punia Atmaja announced the decision at a press conference in Surabaya.
"Tonight we named one suspect, with the initial C.A., who served as president director of the Surabaya Zoo Animal Park Regional Company," official Punia said on Tuesday, 21 July 2026.
Official Punia said investigators found Anwar marked up the zoo's animal feed budget, reducing the actual amount of food given to animals while falsifying accountability reports to show full compliance.
"Because one of the methods involved animal feed. The feed was reduced, but the accountability reports were made to appear complete, when in fact they were marked up," he said.
Based on preliminary calculations with East Java's Financial and Development Supervisory Agency (BPKP), the alleged corruption caused state losses of about 10.2 billion rupiah, according to ofiicial Punia.
He said around 7.4 billion rupiah of that amount was used for the suspect's personal benefit, though he did not detail exactly how the funds were spent.
Official Punia said Anwar held three concurrent roles at the company, serving simultaneously as president director, operations director and finance director, giving him wide latitude to authorize spending and create fictitious expense reports.
