Automatic fish feeding machines from Indonesian start-up eFishery. (File photo: eFishery)

Indonesia court jails ex-chief executive of tech startup eFishery for 9 years for embezzlement

Gibran Huzaifah admitted to manipulating eFishery's financial statements during an earlier interview with Bloomberg, but denied stealing any money.

01 May 2026, 02:54 · CNA · Join

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JAKARTA: An Indonesian court has sentenced Gibran Huzaifah, co-founder and former chief executive of agritech company eFishery, to nine years in prison for embezzlement and money laundering, a court document showed.

Judges at a court in the Indonesian city of Bandung handed the nine-year prison sentence to Gibran on Wednesday (Apr 29), a verdict sheet published on the court's website showed.

Police have been investigating the case since 2024, when a complaint was brought against Gibran and another individual identified only by his initial, C, for misconduct at eFishery.

The parties that filed the report to the police were identified as victims.

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After selling itself as a disruptive business offering fish and shrimp farmers an online platform for "feed, financing and market", eFishery fell from grace in late 2024 when Gibran was suspended over revenue irregularities.

In an interview with Bloomberg, he admitted to manipulating eFishery's financial statements, but denied stealing any money.

After his suspension, the firm laid off most employees and appointed a consulting firm as its new management team, according to local media reports.

The company was once valued at US$1.4 billion but an internal probe found it had inflated its accounts and incurred investor losses of hundreds of millions of dollars, Bloomberg reported.

eFishery's investors include Japan's SoftBank and Singapore's Temasek.

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