More eFishery senior execs ‘actively involved’ in fraud: audit

Embattled Indonesian unicorn eFishery suspended co-founders Gibran Huzaifah and Chrisna Aditya in December 2024 amid fraud claims. A draft audit report that surfaced last week, however, revealed more troubling details, identifying several other senior executives as “implicated employees” in the alleged fraud. 

Tech in Asia reviewed the 52-page report, which found that 10 individuals were “actively involved” in falsifying financials, executing fake transactions, or managing related bank accounts. The list includes then-CEO Huzaifah and two of his direct reports: Angga Hadrian Raditya, eFishery’s vice president of corporate finance and investor relations, and Kristin Dax Veriga, senior VP of the company’s shrimp business.

Gibran Huzaifah, eFishery co-founder and CEO / Photo credit: eFishery

The audit also names six others who were aware of the company’s inflated figures but failed to report them to the board. Among them are four of Huzaifah’s direct reports including Aditya, who also served as eFishery’s chief product officer (CPO).

Prepared by FTI Consulting, the report also lays out how some of the fraud was carried out, such as paying bonuses based on inflated financials, including US$1.3 million in fundraising bonuses. Other incidents involved schemes designed to present the inflated financials to eFishery’s auditors.

FTI Consulting, which was hired by eFishery’s Singapore-headquartered holding firm and its lawyers, is still conducting the investigation. Tech in Asia has reached out to Huzaifah for comment.

Two books

Raditya played a central role in assisting Huzaifah with financials from as early as August 2020, which was shortly after he joined eFishery as head of finance, according to the report.

Based on his LinkedIn profile, Raditya previously worked as an audit associate at KPMG’s Jakarta office and was an asset manager for unnamed high-net-worth individuals. He also served as chief financial officer at Whee, a Jakarta-headquartered company.

The report said Huzaifah began maintaining the “external books” in 2018, which included inflated financials presented to outside parties like eFishery’s board and shareholders as well as banks and auditors.

After Raditya got involved, Huzaifah would provide him with monthly revenue and gross profit figures that needed to be reflected in the external books. Subsequently, journal entries were created to allocate the inflated revenue.

Wirabhama Kirana joined the aquatech firm as head of corporate planning in December 2021, reporting directly to Raditya. Kirana was tasked with helping to maintain the external books. When the draft audit report was written, Kirana had not been interviewed.

By January 2022, Huzaifah had set up five nominee companies to facilitate phony money flows. Raditya managed the bank accounts and tokens for these companies while a member of Kirana’s team processed payments from them, according to the report.

Overall, the report identifies Kirana and four of his direct reports as “actively involved” in the fraud – the highest number from any single team.

Deception and inflation

Potential cash leakages